Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations: The Case for a Progressive Tax

This paper presents the case for tax progressivity based on recent results in optimal tax theory. We consider the questions of the optimal progressivity of earnings taxation and whether capital income should be taxed. For each of these questions, we critically discuss the results from academic research and whether and how such results can be used for policy recommendations. We argue that a result from basic research is relevant for policy only if (a) it is based on economic mechanisms that are empirically relevant and first order to the problem, (b) it is reasonably robust to changes in the modeling assumptions, (c) the policy prescription is implementable (i.e., is socially acceptable and is not too complex). We obtain three policy recommendations from basic research that satisfy these criteria reasonably well. First, high earners should be subject to high and rising marginal tax rates on earnings. Second, low income families should be encouraged to work with earnings subsidies, which should then be phased-out with high implicit marginal tax rates. Third, capital income should be taxed. We explain why the famous zero marginal tax rate result for the top earner in the Mirrlees model and the zero capital income tax rate results of Chamley-Judd and Atkinson-Stiglitz are not policy relevant in our view. We discuss the recent pure mechanism design approach for obtaining tax policy recommendations in dynamic models. Peter Diamond is Professor of Economics at MIT, Cambridge Massachusetts. Emmanuel Saez is Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, California. Their e-mail addresses are pdiamond@mit.edu and saez@econ.berkeley. edu, respectively. We are grateful to Henry Aaron, Alan Auerbach, James Poterba, and editor David Autor for helpful comments and discussions.
Fin Field Effect Transistors Performance in Analog and RF for High-k Dielectrics

The high-k is needed to replace SiO 2 as the gate dielectric to reduce the gate leakage current. The impact of a high-k gate dielectric on the device short channel performance and scalability of nanoscale double gate Fin field effect transistors (FinFET) CMOS is examined by 2-D device simulations. DG FinFETs are designed with high-k at the high performance node of the 2008 Semiconductor Industry Association International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). DG FinFET CMOS can be optimally designed to yield outstanding performance with good trade-offs between speed and power consumption as the gate length is scaled to < 10 nm. Using technology computer-aided design (TCAD) tools a 2-D FinFET device is created and the simulations are performed on it. The optimum value of threshold voltage is identified as V T =0.653V with e=23(ZrO 2 ) for the 2-D device structure. For the 2-D device structure, the leakage current has been reduced to 9.47×10 -14 A. High-k improves the I on /I off ratio of transistors for future high-speed logic applications
Business Failures: Liabilities of Newness, Adolescence, and Smallness

The contextual factors of a company, particularly age and size, are commonly argued to have important implications on its survival chances. The research presented in this paper explores these implications in the context of the construction industry by analyzing the age distribution of failed construction companies and computing age-specific failure probabilities over a 10-year period (1985-1994). The research findings support the liability of adolescence rather than the liability of newness concept. Computed age-specific failure probabilities reveal a pattern of failure in the U.S. construction industry where the risk of failure increases initially with increasing age, reaches a peak point and decreases thereafter as companies grow older. Youngness of a construction company, which implies lack of organization learning and lack of legitimacy, coupled with smallness, appears to be the main factor explaining this pattern. The paper finally addresses the strategic implications of increasing turbulence in the construction industry on the survival or failure of construction firms.
A novel BP neural network for forecasting agriculture water consumption

Forecasting agriculture water consumption is an important task in configuration of water resources. In order to forecast agriculture water consumption, this paper presents an improved BP neural network. The proposed approach employs a novel particle swarm algorithm for training weights in BP. Experimental results show that our proposed method IPSO-BP provides more accurate prediction ability than original BP algorithm and BP based on genetic algorithm (GA-BP).
Prenatal and postnatal determinants in shaping offspring's microbiome in the first year of life. Preliminary results.

Background Fetal programming during in utero life defines the set point of physiological and metabolic responses that lead into adulthood; events happening in “the first 1,000 days” play a role in the development of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The infant gut microbiome is a highly dynamic organ, which is sensitive to maternal factors and environmental insults; it modifies its composition over the host’s lifespan and is one of the elements driving this intergenerational NCDs' transmission. The A.MA. MI (Alimentazione MAmma e bambino nei primi MIlle giorni) project aims at investigating the possible correlation between pre-natal and post-natal factors and the infant gut microbiome composition, during the first year of life at different follow-up. We describe the study design of the A.MA. MI Study and present some preliminary results.Methods A.MA. MI is a longitudinal, prospective, observational study that includes a group of mother-infant pairs (n=63) attending the Neonatal Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia (Italy). The study was planned to provide data collected before discharge (T0) and at 1,6,12 months after birth (T1,T2,T3). Maternal and infant anthropometric measurements are assessed at each time. Other variables evaluated are pre-pregnancy/gestational weight status (T0), maternal dietary habits/physical activity (T1-T3); infant medical history, type of feeding, antibiotics/probiotics/supplements use, environment exposures (e.g cigarette smoking, pets, environmental temperature) (T1-T3). A child stool sample was planned to be collected at each time and analyzed using metagenomics 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequence-based methods. Maternal urine samples were planned to be collected at T3 to investigate pollutants exposure (Phthalates, Bisphenol A and Hydroxypyrene). Results Concerning the birth mode (cesarean section vs. vaginal delivery) significant differences were found only at genera and species levels (T0). A significantly higher relative abundance of Firmicutes was found in meconium of infants born from mothers affected by overweight/obesity, when compared to women with normal weight before pregnancy (T0). Regards type of feeding (breastfed vs formula-fed) the gut microbiota composition differed significantly only at genus and species level (T1). Conclusion These preliminary and explorative results confirmed that pre-pregnancy BMI, mode of delivery and infant factors could affect the infant microbiota composition at different levels.
ANALISIS DAN PERANCANGAN DASHBOARD INFORMATION SYSTEM UNTUK MONITORING TUGAS AKHIR MAHASISWA

Abstrak - Penilitian bertujuan membangun dashboad information system untuk monitoring perkembangan status tugas akhir mahasiswa dengan studi kasus tugas akhir mahasiswa Jurusan Ekonomi dan Bisnis Politeknik Negeri Lampung. Pengembangan sistem dilakukan dengan mengikuti tahapan extreme programming, diantaranya (1) requirements, (2) planning, (3) iteration initialization, (4) design, (5) implementation, (6) system testing, dan (7) retrospective. Hasil yang dicapai berupa dashboard information system berbasis web yang menampilkan informasi data secara luas mengenai Jurusan Ekonomi dan Bisnis, serta visualisasi perkembangan tugas akhir mahasiswa dalam bentuk dashboard. Berdasakan implementasi dan pengujian dapat disimpulkan bahwa sistem dapat diterima dan sangat setuju untuk diterapkan
Biometric characteristics and canopy reflectance association for early-stage sugarcane biomass prediction

ABSTRACT: Knowing the spatial variability of sugarcane biomass in the early stages of development may help growers in their management decision-making. Proximal canopy sensing is a promising technology that can identify this variability but is limited to quantifying plant-specific parameters. In this study, we evaluated whether biometric variables integrated with canopy reflectance data can assist in the generation of models for early-stage sugarcane biomass prediction. To substantiate this assertion, four sugarcane-producing fields were measured with an active crop canopy sensor and 30 sampling plots were selected for manually quantifying chlorophyll content, plant height, stalk number and aboveground biomass. We determined that Random Forest and Multiple Linear Regression models are similarly able to predict biomass, and that associating biometric variables such as number of stalks and plant height with reflectance data can assist model performance, depending on the attributes selected. This indicates that, when estimating biomass in the early stages, sugarcane growers can carry out site-specific management in order to increase yield and reduce the use of inputs.
Extracting a Knowledge Base of COVID-19 Events from Social Media

We present a manually annotated corpus of 10,000 tweets containing public reports of five COVID-19 events, including positive and negative tests, deaths, denied access to testing, claimed cures and preventions. We designed slot-filling questions for each event type and annotated a total of 28 fine-grained slots, such as the location of events, recent travel, and close contacts. We show that our corpus can support fine-tuning BERT-based classifiers to automatically extract publicly reported events, which can be further collected for building a knowledge base. Our knowledge base is constructed over Twitter data covering two years and currently covers over 4.2M events. It can answer complex queries with high precision, such as “Which organizations have employees that tested positive in Philadelphia? ” We believe our proposed methodology could be quickly applied to develop knowledge bases for new domains in response to an emerging crisis, including natural disasters or future disease outbreaks.
Application of Distributed Optimal Power Flow to Power System Security Assessment

This paper presents an algorithm for the parallel solution of the security constrained optimal power flow (SCOPF) problem in a decentralized framework, consisting of regions, using a price-based mechanism that models each region as an economic unit. We first solve the distributed optimal power flow (OPF) problem to determine the maximum secure simultaneous transfer capability of each tie-line between adjacent regions by taking into account only the security constraints imposed on the tie-lines. In this article, the line outage distribution factors (LODF) calculated at the current state are used to formulate the appended constraints. Once the secure transfer capability of each tie-line is determined, the intraregional SCOPF is performed using the conventional linear programming (LP) approach. A description of the inclusion of security constraints with the distributed optimal power flow algorithm will be given, followed by the case studies for Korea Electric Power System.
Interferometric displacement sensor realized with a planar 3x3 directional coupler in glass

A miniature integrated optical Michelson interferometer in glass based on a 3 X 3 directional coupler for high precision displacement measuring is presented. The planar waveguide structure can be used simultaneously for beam splitting and generation of phase shifted interference signals. The latter are necessary for decoding the direction of motion and for interpolation procedures to increase resolution and accuracy. The basic process for fabricating the waveguides in the integrated optical chip is a double thermal ion exchange of silver and sodium in special glass BGG31. It allows to produce buried waveguides with low loss and modefield dimensions adjusted to standard silica fibers.
Minimum mean-squared error multi-user MIMO receive filtering

In this paper we use two modifications of the minimum mean-squared-error (MMSE) cost function to derive new multi-user (MU) MIMO receive algorithms. We derive algorithms that have lower complexity than the lattice reduction techniques and are able to extract full diversity inherent in the system. The resulting algorithms work in the overloaded systems, i.e. can process signals at the user terminals (UTs) equipped with the arbitrary number of antennas, and have no bit error floor. Streszczenie. W pracy wykorzystano dwie modyfikacje funkcji MMSE do otrzymania nowego algorytmu otrzymywania danych przez wielu uzytkown- ikow. Zaproponowany algorytm jest mniej zozony niz technika redukcji siatki i jest w stanie wydoby ´ c ro˙znorodno´ s´´ sciwsystemu. Mozliwe jest przetwarzanie sygnau w terminalu uzytkownika wyposazonego w dowolna liczb ¸ e anten. (Minimum bo ¸´ srednio-kwadratowego w filtrowaniu przesyou MIMO)
Statistical analysis on the effect of capacitance mismatch in a high‐resolution successive‐approximation ADC

This paper describes the statistical analysis of the effect of capacitance mismatch on the accuracy of a high‐resolution successive‐approximation analog‐to‐digital converter (ADC), which employs a split capacitor array to achieve high resolution. An analysis has been made for the following two types of capacitor digital‐to‐analog converters (DACs). One is the capacitor DAC with binary‐weighted capacitor array. The other is that which uses the segmented capacitor array for the upper bits to relax the matching requirement. The analysis was verified using the Monte‐Carlo simulation with capacitance mismatch. This analysis clarifies the required capacitance matching for a given ADC resolution and provides with a guideline for the optimum design. © 2010 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2.5-Gb/s free-space optics link over 1.1 km with direct fiber coupling to commercial devices

A 2.5 Gb/s optical link at 1550 nm over a distance of 1.1 km has been demonstrated between two identical terminals by using standard commercial optoelectronic devices without any optical amplification and with direct optical coupling into the receiver fiber optics pigtail. Each terminal consists of one 200 mm diameter light-weight Ritchey-Chrétien telescope, obtained through electroformed nickel replication technology and used for both reception and transmission. The terminal is a first phase demonstrator towards lean and cost effective design for low and medium distance inter-satellite links at high data rate. Although a tracking system has not yet been implemented, the system can work continuously up to several hours with a cumulative bit error rate lower than 10-9, even in heavy rain conditions.
A STRESS TEST FOR THE MIDPOINT TIME-STEPPING METHOD

The midpoint method can be implemented as a sequence of Backward Euler and Forward Euler solves with half time steps, allowing for improved performance of existing solvers for PDEs. We highlight the advantages of this refactorization by considering some specifics of implementation, conservation, error estimation, adaptivity, stability, and performance on several test problems.
A class B switch-mode assisted linear amplifier

A switch-mode assisted linear amplifier (SMALA) combining a linear (Class B) and a switch-mode (Class D) amplifier is presented. The usual single hysteretic controlled half-bridge current dumping stage is replaced by two parallel buck converter stages, in a parallel voltage controlled topology. These operate independently: one buck converter sources current to assist the upper Class B output device, and a complementary converter sinks current to assist the lower device. This topology lends itself to a novel control approach of a dead-band at low power levels where neither class D amplifier assists, allowing the class B amplifier to supply the load without interference, ensuring high fidelity. A 20 W implementation demonstrates 85% efficiency, with distortion below 0.08% measured across the full audio bandwidth at 15 W. The class D amplifier begins assisting at 2 W, and below this value, the distortion was below 0.03%. Complete circuitry is given, showing the simplicity of the additional class D amplifier and its corresponding control circuitry.
BANDWIDTH-CONSTRAINED DELAY OPTIMIZATION FOR SIGNAL SYSTEMS

Over the past decade, a number of computerized techniques have been developed for optimizing signal timing plans for urban signal systems. These techniques very in their criteria employed to reach a desired timing plan. Most use the criterion of either minimizing system delay and stops or maximizing arterial progression bandwidths. Techniques also vary in terms of the traffic variables considered in the optimization process. The purpose of this article is to report on an approach that integrates the best features of the delay/stops optimization and progression bandwidth optimization techniques. Through the integrated approach, all four variables can be explictly optimized in stages.
Output-Input Hybrid Passive Filter Design for Electric Vehicle Charging Station

The impact of electric car charging stations on power grid harmonics is growing as their existence continues to expand and creates harmonic distortion in the power system. At the same time, the quality of charging current and voltage through the process of charge becomes inferior. Therefore, reduction of output ripple factor (RF) and mitigation of input current harmonics is vital in this situation. This paper presents the design of the output filter and three kinds of shunt passive input filters to decrease the present harmonics generated in the industrial power scheme by the charging stations. The simulation software MATLAB/Simulink was used. Results were acquired before and after installation of filters and after installation of filters, it was found that the percentage RF of output current, voltage, and the percentage THD of the input current is reduced to match the set standards.
Low voltage driven dielectric electro active polymer actuator with integrated piezoelectric transformer based driver

Today's Dielectric Electro Active Polymer (DEAP) actuators utilize high voltage (HV) in the range of kilo volts to fully stress the actuator. The requirement of HV is a drawback for the general use in the industry due to safety concerns and HV regulations. In order to avoid the HV interface to DEAP actuators, a low voltage solution is developed by integrating the driver electronic into a 110 mm tall cylindrical coreless Push InLastor actuator. To decrease the size of the driver, a piezoelectric transformer (PT) based solution is utilized. The PT is essentially an improved Rosen type PT with interleaved sections. Furthermore, the PT is optimized for an input voltage of 24 V with a gain high enough to achieve a DEAP voltage of 2.5 kV. The PT is simulated and verified through measurements on a working prototype. With the adapted hysteretic based control system; output voltage wave forms of both impulse response and sinusoidal shapes up to 2.5 kV are demonstrated. The control system, together with a carefully designed HV output stage, contributes to low power consumption at a static DEAP force. The HV stage consists of a HV measurement circuit and a triple diode voltage doubler optimized for low leakage current drawn from the DEAP. As a result, a 95 mm x 13 mm x 7 mm driver is integrated in a 110 mm x 32 mm actuator, forming a low voltage interfaced DEAP actuator.
EYE BLINK CONTROL OF APPLIANCES FOR PARALYTIC AND ELDERLY

Mobility is defined as the ability to move freely and easily. The ability to move independently is vital for all life functions and plays a major role in maintaining mental health. Paralysis is a loss of muscle function in a part or full body of the patient. In every patient suffering from immobility, eye is commonly found to be the only organ in working condition. Hence, the proposed paper presents an automation system to detect and count the number of blinks of the patient using image processing to detect blinks to trigger different appliances of the house that alerts the caretaker or neighbors in times of emergencies. Blink detection is a concept that has undergone multiple algorithms and approaches, the previous ones made use of artificial neural network (template matching) which involved subjective training of every patient’s eyes. Image processing approach sets the proposed paper apart from the rest. Although this paper aimed at developing an automation system for the aid of paralysis patients, practically it can be used for the aid of any pat ient suffering from movement disability. Index Terms – Eye blinks, Face detection, Paralysis patient, Health, control
Measuring Network Impact on Application Outcomes Using Quality Attenuation

The mathematical properties of this method produce high spatial and temporal localisation from low-impact measurements that can be run continuously. This can be used to both assure end-to-end conformance and localize ‘breaches’ to specific network segments, enabling both service and contractual assurance. In laboratory and field trial settings, it can be used for testing configurations, properties of firmware, differences between different access technologies, etc.
Long non-coding RNAs in placental development and disease

To reconceptualize epitranscriptomics, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as future frontiers in the paradigm shift of stereotyped biological science. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) represent a class of endogenous RNA molecules with length greater than 200 nucleotides but not exceeding 100 kilobases that do not encode proteins, yet transcribed by RNA Polymerase II and are poly-adenylated. Unlike protein-coding genes, they exhibit poor interspecies conservation. However, lack of sequence conservation does not imply the lack of function. Indeed, this dearth in evolutionary conservation challenges the functional investigation of lncRNAs. Previously characterized as products of pervasive transcription, recent advances in lncRNA research proposes them as imperative mediators of gene regulation at the transcription and post-transcriptional level. Ever-increasing amount of RNA sequencing data is expanding the lncRNA inventory to fundamentally dissect the architecture of eukaryotic complexity. Over the last two decades a flurry of studies identified quite a few placental lncRNAs. However, given the complexity of placental development, many questions have been raised regarding their biological function. Nonetheless, identification of lncRNAs of placental origin in the maternal circulation throughout pregnancy raised the prospect of lncRNAs being evaluated as prognostic biomarker of trophoblast associated disorders leading to adverse pregnancy outcome. In this review, we summarize key findings on the recent advances in lncRNA research during the development of the feto-maternal organ placenta and dys-regulations of lncRNA functionalities as prime determinants of placenta associated pregnancy complications.
Attention Orienting in Augmented Reality Environments: Effects of Multimodal Cues

The accuracy and efficiency of visual, auditory, and tactile cues to orient attention were tested under different levels of workload. Nineteen participants took part in an experiment in which they performed a visual, auditory, or tactile cueing task under both low and high workload conditions. Results showed that under high workload, both visual cues alone and tactile cues alone improved target detection accuracy. In the low workload condition, perceived workload estimates were lower when tactile cues were present than when absent. These results indicate the benefits of both visual and tactile cues in target detection tasks. These findings have implications for training, systems design, and human performance assessment.