Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality Assessment of Sea Surface Temperature from ATSRs of the Climate Change Initiative (Phase 1)

Sea Surface Temperature (SST) observations from space have been made by the Along Track Scanning Radiometers (ATSRs) providing 20 years (August 1991–April 2012) of high quality data. As part of the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) project, SSTs have been retrieved from the ATSRs. Here, the quality of CCI SST (Phase 1) from ATSRs is validated against drifting buoys. Only CCI ATSR SSTs (Version 1.1) are considered, to facilitate the comparison with the precursor dataset ATSR Reprocessing for Climate (ARC). The CCI retrievals compared with drifting buoys have a median difference slightly larger than 0.1 K. The median SST difference is larger in the tropics (∼0.3 K) during the day, with the night time showing a spatially homogeneous pattern. ATSR-2 and AATSR show similar performance in terms of Robust Standard Deviation (RSD) being 0.2–0.3 K during night and about 0.1 K higher during day. On the other hand, ATSR-1 shows increasing RSD with time from 0.3 K to over 0.6 K. Triple collocation analysis has been applied for the first time on TMI/ATSR-2 observations and for daytime conditions when the wind speed is greater than 10 m/s. Both day and night results indicate that since 2004, the random uncertainty of drifting buoys and CCI AATSR is rather stable at about 0.22 K. Before 2004, drifting buoys have larger values (∼0.3 K), while ATSR-2 shows slightly lower values (∼0.2 K). The random uncertainty for AMSR-E is about 0.47 K, also rather stable with time, while as expected, the TMI has higher values of ∼0.55 K. It is shown for the first time that the AMSR-E random uncertainty changes with latitude, being ∼0.3 K in the tropics and about double this value at mid-latitudes. The SST uncertainties provided with the CCI data are slightly overestimated above 0.45 K and underestimated below 0.3 K during the day. The uncertainty model does not capture correctly the periods with instrument problems after the ATSR-1 3.7 μ m channel failed and the gyro failure of ERS-2. During the night, the uncertainties are slightly underestimated. The CCI SSTs (Phase 1) do not yet match the quality of the ARC dataset when comparing to drifting buoys. The value of the ARC median bias is closer to zero than for CCI, while the RSD is about 0.05 K lower for ARC. ARC also shows a more homogeneous geographical distribution of median bias and RSD, although the differences between the two datasets are small. The observed discrepancies between CCI and ARC during the period of ATSR-1 are unexplained given that both datasets use the same retrieval method.
Knowledge Graph Embedding: A Survey of Approaches and Applications

Knowledge graph (KG) embedding is to embed components of a KG including entities and relations into continuous vector spaces, so as to simplify the manipulation while preserving the inherent structure of the KG. It can benefit a variety of downstream tasks such as KG completion and relation extraction, and hence has quickly gained massive attention. In this article, we provide a systematic review of existing techniques, including not only the state-of-the-arts but also those with latest trends. Particularly, we make the review based on the type of information used in the embedding task. Techniques that conduct embedding using only facts observed in the KG are first introduced. We describe the overall framework, specific model design, typical training procedures, as well as pros and cons of such techniques. After that, we discuss techniques that further incorporate additional information besides facts. We focus specifically on the use of entity types, relation paths, textual descriptions, and logical rules. Finally, we briefly introduce how KG embedding can be applied to and benefit a wide variety of downstream tasks such as KG completion, relation extraction, question answering, and so forth.
Identification of Endogenously Presented Peptides from Chlamydia trachomatis with High Homology to Human Proteins and to a Natural Self-ligand of HLA-B27*S

A strategy for the stable expression of proteins, or large protein fragments, from Chlamydia trachomatis into human cells was designed to identify bacterial epitopes endogenously processed and presented by HLA-B27. Fusion protein constructs in which the green fluorescent protein gene was placed at the 5′-end of the bacterial DNA primase gene or some of its fragments were transfected into B*2705-C1R cells. One of these constructs, including residues 90–450 of the bacterial protein, was stably and efficiently expressed. Mass spectrometry-based comparative analysis of HLA-B27-bound peptide pools led to identification of three HLA-B27 ligands differentially presented in the transfectant cells. Sequencing of these peptides confirmed that they were derived from the bacterial DNA primase. One of them, spanning residues 211–221, showed 55% sequence identity with a known self-ligand of HLA-B27 derived from its own molecule. The other two bacterial ligands, P-(112–121) and P-(112–122), were derived from the same region and differed in length by one residue at the C terminus. Both peptides showed >50% identity with multiple human protein sequences that possessed the optimal peptide motifs for HLA-B27 binding. Thus, expression of proteins from arthritogenic bacteria in HLA-B27-positive human cells allows identifying bacterial peptides that are endogenously processed and presented by HLA-B27 and show molecular mimicry with known self-ligands of this molecule and human proteins.
Suicide in Psychiatric Patients

Summary The study relates to suicides occurring in Shropshire during 1965 to 1973 inclusive. Psychiatric patients who had committed suicide were compared with others, matched by sex and age who had not done so. The suicide group included a higher proportion of members who had behaved violently, experienced a broken marriage (through death, separation or divorce) or earlier had deliberately harmed themselves, often by dangerous means. Of the psychiatric patients who committed suicide 63 per cent had seen a doctor within a month beforehand, yet very few were receiving adequate physical treatment for depressive illness at the time of their death. Immigrants from eastern Europe were found to be particularly prone to suicide.
Temporomandibular Joint Disorders in Older Adults

To review the literature and summarize the evidence of temporomandibualar joint (TMJ) disorders (TMDs) in older adults, focusing on clinical manifestations of TMDs in older adults, highlighting the incidence and sexual dimorphism of TMJ degeneration and the role of sex hormones in this process, and providing potential treatment options for TMD in older adults.
Year-round breeding of crossbred Dorset or Finnish landrace ewes using a synthetic light regimen.

A group of crossbred Dorset or Finnish Landrace ewes maintained under a synthetic light regimen (Light Treatment, 4 mo long days - 16 h light, 4 mo short days - 8 h light) and exposed to rams every 8 mo (January 1, September 1, May 1) was compared for lamb production over a period of 4.5 yr with two other comparable groups under natural daylight conditions, one exposed to rams once a year in the fall (Control I) and the other every 8 mo (Control II). Conception rates across breed type of ewe were 92% for Control I, 66% for Control II and 83% for Light Treatment ewes. Conception rates for May breedings only were 16% in Control II and 88% in Light Treatment ewes. Prolificacies of crossbred Finn ewes were higher (P less than .05) than those in crossbred Dorset ewes of Control I (258 vs 193%), Control II (187 vs 165%) and Light Treatment (238 vs 163%). The annual production at lambing from the crossbred Finn and Dorset ewes in Control I was 251 and 206 lambs/100 ewes exposed to rams, respectively. Corresponding productions were 231 and 178 for Control II and 296 and 211 for Light Treatment ewes. Mortality of lambs from the crossbred Finn ewes (27%) was higher (P less than .01) than that from the crossbred Dorset ewes (12%). Annual attrition of the crossbred Dorset ewes in Control I, Control II and Light Treatment groups was 5.2, 5.4 and 5.4%, respectively. Corresponding percentages of the crossbred Finn ewes were 7.0, 8.8 and 11.2. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A comparison of the household sector from the Flow of Funds Accounts and the Survey of Consumer Finances

This paper examines selected assets and liabilities from the FFA household sector and from the 1989 and 1992 SCF. SCF and FFA comparisons have proved difficult in the past, and previous research has not fully adjusted for definitional differences between the FFA and the SCF. This analysis addresses common misperceptions about the definitions of the FFA's assets and liabilities and describes the reconciliations between the FFA and SCF measures. The results show that for some asset and liability categories the SCF and FFA estimates are quite close. Measures of liabilities, however, match up better than those for assets.
Study of guangzhou house price bubble based on state‐space model

Previous literature has explored Guangzhou's real estate market bubble problem, by using the perspective of rent receipts to measure the fundamental housing value. Since there is high proportion of owner‐occupied property in Guangzhou; and that the household income is considered a key factor affecting housing price level, this article is from the perspective of household income, by the present asset market model, it sets up housing price model that analysis of the bubble phenomenon, and uses the state‐space model that can be estimated characteristics by unobservable variables. The article estimates the price bubble and analyzes the size of the bubble at different times. The housing price in Guangzhou from January 2004 to December 2008 is studied. The results concluded that the housing market bubble peaked in October 2007 at around 43% of the market housing price.
London or New York: where and when does the gold price originate?

We investigate the Information Shares (ISs) of the two main centres of gold trading, over a 25-year period, using nonoverlapping 4-month windows. We find that neither London nor New York is dominant in terms of price IS, that the dominant market switches from time to time and that these switches do not appear to be very clearly linkable to macroeconomic or political events.
Fat distribution, body mass index and blood pressure in 22 090 men and women in the Norfolk cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Norfolk) study

Objective To determine the relation between fat distribution and blood pressure, independent of body mass index. Design Cross-sectional, population-based study. Participants and methods Participants, 9936 men and 12 154 women aged 45–79 years, were recruited from general practices in Norfolk, United Kingdom for the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Norfolk) study. Participants filled in a health and lifestyle questionnaire and their blood pressure and anthropometry were measured at a clinic. We mainly used waist–hip ratio (WHR) to assess body fat distribution. Results Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) increased linearly across the whole range of waist–hip ratio in both men and women. The relation was independent of age, body mass index (BMI) and other covariates. Separately, waist and hip circumferences were positively related to SBP and DBP. When adjusted for BMI, waist circumference was positively related to SBP (in women) and DBP (in both men and women), whereas hip circumference was inversely related to SBP (but not DBP) in both men and women. Stratifying by tertiles of waist and hip circumference, age- and BMI-adjusted SBP and DBP were highest among those with high waist and small hip circumference measures. Conclusion Waist–hip ratio was independently related to blood pressure. Waist–hip ratio could reflect the separate and opposite relations of waist and hip circumferences on blood pressure. Characterizing patterns of fat distribution may have implications in the assessment and control of obesity-related blood pressure elevation.
PRICING DERIVATIVES ON TWO-DIMENSIONAL LÉVY PROCESSES

The aim of this work is to use a duality approach to study the pricing of derivatives depending on two stocks driven by a bidimensional Levy process. The main idea is to apply Girsanov's Theorem for Levy processes, in order to reduce the posed problem to a problem with one Levy driven stock in an auxiliary market, baptized as "dual market". In this way, we extend the results obtained by Gerber and Shiu [5] for two-dimensional Brownian motion.
Inter-intra frame segmentation using colour and motion for region of interest coding of video

In this paper, we present a segmentation method that is based on combined colour with temporal features like motion vectors. In the past segmentation methods for region of interest (ROI) coding has only based segmentation on one feature such as motion, colour and luminance etc [1–2]. The segmentation system that we proposed is based on two features there by combining the strengths of each separate segmentation technique e.g. fidelity and consistency of region combined with moving regions. First of all we segment image (pixels level) inside frame based on colour and then in the second step we segments the images (block level) in a set of frames based on motion. This is initial work of our project where we want to compress video by removing perceptual redundancy based on human visual perceptual capabilities. Human perceive images in term of objects which can never be captured as a whole image or its global features. In order to identify the Region of Interest (ROI) from the frames (and sequence of frames), this efficient segmentation is very important. As a first step, for colour based image segmentation we use an efficient method where speed is our primary concern because we have to process multi frames per second and for motion based image segmentation we use block based motion estimation combined with a motion threshold. Quality of the motion segmentation will be considered in the second step where we use morphological operators to remove interior and exterior noise. Since segmentation is based on blocks, where we have quite less number of pixels than in the image, so speed in not such a big issue. For the third step we explore how to combine the motion and colour segmented images. Our first algorithm is based on combining the edges of the colour segmented image with the edges of the block based motion estimated image. We are working on other algorithms to try and obtain more concise and consistent results. This paper describes our first approach.
Pakistan's military spending: Socio‐economic dimensions

Abstract In the past years, Pakistan's defence expenditure has always been on an increase and on the higher end. Even though Pakistan's fragile economy has been unable to support it, the military spending in Pakistan has been at the cost of development expenditure. The factors claimed by Pakistan to be behind the high defence spending are the perceived security threat from India, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which gave an opportunity to the Pakistani military to fulfill its long desired modernisation plans, and domestic factors such as societal violence and sectarianism. However, the fact remains, that the military enjoys immense control over the decision‐making process in Pakistan and, thus, the defence budget has been prioritised over the social sector. This is evident in the form of the retarded growth of the social sector in Pakistan. An increasing non‐development budget has also entailed huge cuts in the development budget and, thus, has badly affected Pakistan's economy. Initially, the declining development budget was financed through debt. Consequently, debt repayment and debt servicing increased the non‐development budget. With the progression of time, borrowing financed the non‐development budget also. Currently, Pakistan is in a position where new loans are being acquired to repay the old ones. Thus, the defence expenditure has added to the miseries of Pakistan in a spiralling manner.
Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces Regression Methods for Genomic Assisted Prediction of Quantitative Traits

Reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces regression procedures for prediction of total genetic value for quantitative traits, which make use of phenotypic and genomic data simultaneously, are discussed from a theoretical perspective. It is argued that a nonparametric treatment may be needed for capturing the multiple and complex interactions potentially arising in whole-genome models, i.e., those based on thousands of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. After a review of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces regression, it is shown that the statistical specification admits a standard mixed-effects linear model representation, with smoothing parameters treated as variance components. Models for capturing different forms of interaction, e.g., chromosome-specific, are presented. Implementations can be carried out using software for likelihood-based or Bayesian inference.
The repeat travel market for Taiwan: A multi-stage segmentation approach

Despite the importance of market segmentation, the growth of the travel and tourism industry in Taiwan, and the repeat travel phenomenon in tourism, relatively few studies have examined the behavior of repeat travelers in the East Asia region. The present study was designed to fill this gap. This exploratory study applied multistage segmentation in the context of repeat travel behavior to Taiwan. It examined the socio-demographic profile, trip characteristics and expenditures of Taiwan inbound repeat travelers. The results indicated that nationality, income, type of travel arrangements and information search behavior significantly affected repeat travel behavior. In terms of travel expenditures, males spent significantly more than females. Those travelers between 40 and 60 years old tended to spend the most when they visited Taiwan compared to other groups. Chinese travelers were most likely to have traveled to Taiwan more than once among all nationalities compared in this study. Those from Korea and Japa.
Glucose-Regulated Protein 94/Glycoprotein 96 Elicits Bystander Activation of CD4+ T Cell Th1 Cytokine Production In Vivo

Glucose-regulated protein 94 (GRP94/gp96), the endoplasmic reticulum heat shock protein 90 paralog, elicits both innate and adaptive immune responses. Regarding the former, GRP94/gp96 stimulates APC cytokine expression and dendritic cell maturation. The adaptive component of GRP94/gp96 function reflects a proposed peptide-binding activity and, consequently, a role for native GRP94/gp96-peptide complexes in cross-presentation. It is by this mechanism that tumor-derived GRP94/gp96 is thought to suppress tumor growth and metastasis. Recent data have demonstrated that GRP94/gp96-elicited innate immune responses can be sufficient to suppress tumor growth and metastasis. However, the immunological processes activated in response to tumor Ag-negative sources of GRP94/gp96 are currently unknown. We have examined the in vivo immunological response to nontumor sources of GRP94/gp96 and report that administration of syngeneic GRP94/gp96- or GRP94/gp96-N-terminal domain-secreting KBALB fibroblasts to BALB/c mice stimulates CD11b+ and CD11c+ APC function and promotes bystander activation of CD4+ T cell Th1 cytokine production. Only modest activation of CD8+ T cell or NK cell cytolytic function was observed. The GRP94/gp96-dependent induction of CD4+ T cell cytokine production was markedly inhibited by carrageenan, indicating an essential role for APC in this response. These results identify the bystander activation of CD4+ T lymphocytes as a previously unappreciated immunological consequence of GRP94/gp96 administration and demonstrate that GRP94/gp96-elicited alterations in the in vivo cytokine environment influence the development of CD4+ T cell effector functions, independently of its proposed function as a peptide chaperone.
Investigating Political Dynamics Using Fractional Integration Methods

Theory: Many questions central to political science, such as the issue of stability and change in the United States party system, revolve around the degree of persistence or memory in a political process. Fractional integration techniques, which allow researchers to investigate dynamic behavior that falls between the stationary and integrated alternatives, provide more precise ways to test hypotheses about the degree of persistence than current modeling strategies. Hypotheses: Choices about the treatment of the time series properties of the data and model specification may influence the substantive conclusions drawn about the dynamics of important political processes. Methods: Fractional integration methods are discussed and compared with common univariate diagnostic tests. A transfer function model of macropartisanship using fractional integration techniques is contrasted with traditional ARMA and ARIMA methods. Results: Fractional integration techniques offer a more flexible way to model a time series. Using fractional integration techniques, we find that macropartisanship is dominated by a strong permanent component, but also contains transitory dynamics in response to changes in economic evaluations and a measure of presidential approval. Our empirical work shows the importance of taking seriously the time series properties of data to ensure valid inferences about the dynamics of political processes.
Effect of oil price risk on systematic risk from transportation services industry evidence

This paper investigates the effects of oil price risk on systematic risk using the transportation service industries as samples across eight representative nations. The researchers estimate the systematic risk by the use of time-varying models including the Schwert and Seguin model, the Multi-GARCH model and the Kalman filter algorithm as well as the market model. The empirical results show that the Kalman filter algorithm appears to be the superior model for capturing systematic risk in the transportation industry. The betas of the marine industry decrease as it suffers from oil price risk, while the airline industry sees the reverse. Therefore, the influence of oil price risk is more critical for the airline industry.
In Search of Leading Indicator Property of Yield Spread for India: An Approach Based on Quantile and Wavelet Regression

The leading indicator ability of yield spread for future output growth and inflation is tested for India. Using the yields on securities with maturities ten years and three months to construct yield spread, we study the predictive power of yield spread for output growth and inflation. Our results based on regression of future inflation and output on yield spreads indicate that there is no information in the yield spread about future economic activity and inflation in India. Further, the predictive power of yield spread is analyzed over different quantiles of inflation and output growth using quantile regression; we find that there is again no evidence of predictive information in the yield spreads. Using multiscale wavelet based regression, predictive power is however unveiled at higher time scales for output growth only.