Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stock Market Integration and the Impact of the Subprime Financial Crisis: A Malaysian Perspective

Using weekly data over the period 2002-2011, we examine market integration among 22 international markets from the viewpoint of Malaysian investors. We also analyse the impact of the subprime financial crisis of 2007-2008 on the linkages of these markets. In general, our results indicate a lack of cointegration in all market groups. We find that the subprime crisis has resulted in a temporary cointegration in the groups during the peak of the crisis, but cointegration is weak or absent in the pre- and post-crisis periods. We also find that cointegration is strongest in the Malaysian and European market groups and surprisingly weak in the group involving Malaysia and its neighbouring emerging markets. The results of the causality and variance decomposition analyses strongly indicate that Malaysia is largely unrelated with other markets. Overall, our evidence points towards the possibility for diversification benefits to local investors.Keywords: Stock Market Integration, Subprime Crisis, Cointegration, Structural Breaks, Granger Causality, Variance DecompositionJEL: F30, F36, G15
Diversity and Distribution of nirK-Harboring Denitrifying Bacteria in the Water Column in the Yellow River Estuary

We investigated the diversity and community composition of denitrifying bacteria in surface water from the Yellow River estuary. Our results indicated that the diversity of the denitrifying community in freshwater based on the nirK gene was higher than that in seawater. Furthermore, phylogenetic analysis suggested that the bacteria community could be distributed into eight clusters (Clusters I to VIII). Redundancy analysis (RDA) revealed that community compositions were related to multiple environment factors, such as salinity and nitrate concentration. The results of the present study have provided a novel insight into the denitrifying community in water columns in estuaries.
Capital Structure Choice in BRIC and Eastern European Companies: Empirical Analysis

The paper presents the results of dynamic trade-off empirical testing on the data of BRIC and Eastern European companies. On the sample of 403 large public companies within 2002-2010 financial years the relevance of dynamic trade-off theory was revealed. Moreover it was found out that market timing and pecking order motives influence the debt-to-equity choice through its effect on speed of adjustment while agency and behavioral factors are significant in target debt level specification.
Inhibition of Nuclear Factor of Activated T-Cells (NFAT) Suppresses Accelerated Atherosclerosis in Diabetic Mice

Objective of the Study Diabetic patients have a much more widespread and aggressive form of atherosclerosis and therefore, higher risk for myocardial infarction, peripheral vascular disease and stroke, but the molecular mechanisms leading to accelerated damage are still unclear. Recently, we showed that hyperglycemia activates the transcription factor NFAT in the arterial wall, inducing the expression of the pro-atherosclerotic protein osteopontin. Here we investigate whether NFAT activation may be a link between diabetes and atherogenesis. Methodology and Principal Findings Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes in apolipoprotein E−/− mice resulted in 2.2 fold increased aortic atherosclerosis and enhanced pro-inflammatory burden, as evidenced by elevated blood monocytes, endothelial activation- and inflammatory markers in aorta, and pro-inflammatory cytokines in plasma. In vivo treatment with the NFAT blocker A-285222 for 4 weeks completely inhibited the diabetes-induced aggravation of atherosclerosis, having no effect in non-diabetic mice. STZ-treated mice exhibited hyperglycemia and higher plasma cholesterol and triglycerides, but these were unaffected by A-285222. NFAT-dependent transcriptional activity was examined in aorta, spleen, thymus, brain, heart, liver and kidney, but only augmented in the aorta of diabetic mice. A-285222 completely blocked this diabetes-driven NFAT activation, but had no impact on the other organs or on splenocyte proliferation or cytokine secretion, ruling out systemic immunosuppression as the mechanism behind reduced atherosclerosis. Instead, NFAT inhibition effectively reduced IL-6, osteopontin, monocyte chemotactic protein 1, intercellular adhesion molecule 1, CD68 and tissue factor expression in the arterial wall and lowered plasma IL-6 in diabetic mice. Conclusions Targeting NFAT signaling may be a novel and attractive approach for the treatment of diabetic macrovascular complications.
Discolouration loose deposits in distribution systems: Composition, behaviour and practical aspects

The main objective of the thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of the possible origins and development processes underlying tap water discolouration. With that purpose, qualitative and practical approaches were used for collecting loose deposits samples from distribution networks, i.e., methodologies that may be used together with daily routine procedures by the water companies to prevent and interpret loose deposits accumulation. To investigate the origins of loose deposits, samples were subjected to physical? chemical characterisation, not only for their typical components (Fe, VS), but also for some organic constituents (i.e., EPS). To study loose deposits behaviour, loose deposits observations were followed by stereoscope and microscopy visualizations, as well as turbidity decrease measurements. Studies on loose deposits build? up were assessed with pilot scale experiments, for better knowledge on the loose deposits formation processes taking place at drinking water distribution systems. The microbiological relevance of discolouration loose deposits was also evaluated, including the possible role of bacteria in loose deposits accumulation, in order to appraise the possible effects on water quality upon loose deposits resuspension. Thus, this thesis aims to improve knowledge on the “whys” and “hows” of discolouration events in drinking water distribution systems. More specifically, emphasis was given to understand how such light particulates may accumulate and resist to the shear stresses occurring in drinking water distribution systems, before loose deposits resuspend at one time and cause tap water discolouration.
Electron Abundance in Protostellar Cores

The determination of the fractional electron abundance, xe, in protostellar cores relies on observations of molecules such as DCO+, H13CO+, and CO and on chemical models to interpret their abundance. Studies of protostellar cores have revealed significant variations of xe from core to core within a range 10-8 < xe < 10-6. The physical origin of these large variations in xe is not well understood, unless unlikely variations in the cosmic-ray ionization rate or ad hoc values of metal depletion are assumed. In this work we explore other potential causes of these variations in xe including core age, extinction, and density. We compute numerically the intensity of the radiation field within a density distribution generated by supersonic turbulence. Taking into account the lines of sight in all directions, the effective visual extinction in dense regions is found to be always much lower than the extinction derived from the column density along a fixed line of sight. Dense cores with volume and column densities comparable to observed protostellar cores have relatively low mass-averaged visual extinction, 2 ≤ AV ≤ 5 mag, such that photoionization can sometimes be as important as cosmic-ray ionization. Chemical models, including gas-grain chemistry and time-dependent gas depletion and desorption, are computed for values of visual extinction in the range 2 ≤ AV ≤ 6 mag and for a hydrogen gas density of 104 cm-3, typical of protostellar cores. The models presented here can reproduce some of the observed variations of ion abundance from core to core as the combined effect of visual extinction and age variations. The range of electron abundances predicted by the models is relatively insensitive to density over 104-106 cm-3.
Engineering of Immunoglobulin Fc Heterodimers Using Yeast Surface-Displayed Combinatorial Fc Library Screening

Immunoglobulin Fc heterodimers, which are useful scaffolds for the generation of bispecific antibodies, have been mostly generated through structure-based rational design methods that introduce asymmetric mutations into the CH3 homodimeric interface to favor heterodimeric Fc formation. Here, we report an approach to generate heterodimeric Fc variants through directed evolution combined with yeast surface display. We developed a combinatorial heterodimeric Fc library display system by mating two haploid yeast cell lines, one haploid cell line displayed an Fc chain library (displayed FcCH3A) with mutations in one CH3 domain (CH3A) on the yeast cell surface, and the other cell line secreted an Fc chain library (secreted FcCH3B) with mutations in the other CH3 domain (CH3B). In the mated cells, secreted FcCH3B is displayed on the cell surface through heterodimerization with the displayed FcCH3A, the detection of which enabled us to screen the library for heterodimeric Fc variants. We constructed combinatorial heterodimeric Fc libraries with simultaneous mutations in the homodimer-favoring electrostatic interaction pairs K370-E357/S364 or D399-K392/K409 at the CH3 domain interface. High-throughput screening of the libraries using flow cytometry yielded heterodimeric Fc variants with heterodimer-favoring CH3 domain interface mutation pairs, some of them showed high heterodimerization yields (~80–90%) with previously unidentified CH3 domain interface mutation pairs, such as hydrogen bonds and cation-π interactions. Our study provides a new approach for engineering Fc heterodimers that could be used to engineer other heterodimeric protein-protein interactions through directed evolution combined with yeast surface display.
Probably Intersecting Families are Not Nested

It is well known that an intersecting family of subsets of an n-element set can contain at most 2n−1 sets. It is natural to wonder how ‘close’ to intersecting a family of size greater than 2n−1 can be. Katona, Katona and Katona introduced the idea of a ‘most probably intersecting family’. Suppose that is a family and that 0 < p < 1. Let (p) be the (random) family formed by selecting each set in independently with probability p. A family is most probably intersecting if it maximizes the probability that (p) is intersecting over all families of size ||. Katona, Katona and Katona conjectured that there is a nested sequence consisting of most probably intersecting families of every possible size. We show that this conjecture is false for every value of p provided that n is sufficiently large.
Ultrasound Study of Moroccan Arabic Labiovelarization

In this survey, we have provided some acoustic and ultrasound data from two subjects to characterize a secondary articulation generally analyzed as labialization in Moroccan Arabic. Our results show that the so-called labialized consonants are rather labiovelarized. They also show that the vowel [a] adjacent to the labiovelarized consonants is velarized.
Who gained from Vietnam's boom in the 1990s? An analysis of poverty and inequality trends

The authors assess the extent to which Vietnam's rapid economic growth in the 1990s was accompanied by reductions in poverty. They also investigate factors that contribute to certain households benefiting more than others. Using information from two household surveys, the Vietnam Living Standards Surveys (VNLSS) for 1992-93, and 1997-98, they show that Vietnam's gains in poverty reduction were striking during this period, and that the country's impressive growth has been fairly broad-based. After discussing descriptive statistics for both years, the authors examine factors contributing to poverty reduction using both simple decomposition analysis, and a multinomial logit model. The results show that: 1) returns to education increased significantly during this period, particularly for higher levels of education. 2) Location significantly affected a household's probability of escaping poverty during this period. Urban households enjoyed a greater reduction in poverty than did rural households, and households residing in the Red River Delta, and the southeast were also better able to take advantage of new opportunities. 3) White-collar households benefited most, and agricultural laborers the least. However, Vietnam cannot afford to be complacent, as nearly half its rural population lives below the poverty line, poverty rates among ethnic minorities remain very high, and natural calamities are a serious impediment to poverty reduction.
Relational Goods, Monitoring and Non-Pecuniary Compensations in the Nonprofit Sector: The Case of the Italian Social Services

This paper investigates the nonprofit wage gap suggesting a theoretical framework where, like in Akerlof (1984), effort correlates not only with wages, but also with non-monetary compensations. These take the form of relational goods and services by-produced in the delivery of particular services. By paying higher non-pecuniary compensations, the nonprofit sector attracts intrinsically similarly skilled, but more motivated workers, able to provide in fact a higher level of effort than their counterparts in the forprofit sector. On an empirical ground, the paper provides a number of econometric tests that confirm the main predictions of the model in Italy’s case. It adds to the available empirical literature by introducing in the analysis direct measures of non-pecuniary compensations and job satisfaction.
An Efficient Optimization Approach to Real-Time Coordinated and Integrated Freeway Traffic Control

This paper tackles the problem of real-time optimal control of traffic flow in a freeway network deployed with coordinated and integrated traffic controllers. One promising approach to this problem is casting the underlying dynamic control problem in a model predictive framework. The challenge is that the resulting optimization problem is computationally intractable for online applications in a network with a large number of controllers. In this paper, a game-theoretic approach with distributed controllers is proposed to address the foregoing issue. The efficiency of the proposed method is tested for a coordinated ramp metering and variable-speed limit control applied to a stretch of freeway network. The parallel nature of the optimization algorithm makes it suitable for solving large-scale problems with high accuracy. The speed and accuracy of the proposed solution approach are examined and compared with that of the conventional optimization method in a case study to demonstrate its superior performance.
Market Integration of Farmed Trout in Germany

Price formation and integration of markets supplied by both farmed and captured fish is studied. Markets for trout and potential substitutes imported to Germany are analysed, and market delineation and market leaders identified. It is found that markets for small portion-sized farmed trout with white meat are related to, rather than completely separate from, other fish markets, and that markets for these trout are more closely linked to markets for captured fish than to farmed salmon. The implications are that although the part of the trout business operating with small freshwater ponds remains relatively unaffected by developments in other fish markets, careful attention should be paid to markets for and management of capture fisheries like cod, halibut, redfish, and mackerel, than to markets for farmed salmon.
Soft Pneumatic Actuator Fascicles for High Force and Reliability

Abstract Soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) are found in mobile robots, assistive wearable devices, and rehabilitative technologies. While soft actuators have been one of the most crucial elements of technology leading the development of the soft robotics field, they fall short of force output and bandwidth requirements for many tasks. In addition, other general problems remain open, including robustness, controllability, and repeatability. The SPA-pack architecture presented here aims to satisfy these standards of reliability crucial to the field of soft robotics, while also improving the basic performance capabilities of SPAs by borrowing advantages leveraged ubiquitously in biology; namely, the structured parallel arrangement of lower power actuators to form the basis of a larger and more powerful actuator module. An SPA-pack module consisting of a number of smaller SPAs will be studied using an analytical model and physical prototype. Experimental measurements show an SPA pack to generate over 112 N linear force, while the model indicates the benefit of parallel actuator grouping over a geometrically equivalent single SPA scale as an increasing function of the number of individual actuators in the group. For a module of four actuators, a 23% increase in force production over a volumetrically equivalent single SPA is predicted and validated, while further gains appear possible up to 50%. These findings affirm the advantage of utilizing a fascicle structure for high-performance soft robotic applications over existing monolithic SPA designs. An example of high-performance soft robotic platform will be presented to demonstrate the capability of SPA-pack modules in a complete and functional system.
MacWilliams type identities for some new $m$-spotty weight enumerators over finite commutative Frobenius rings

Past few years have seen an extensive use of RAM chips with wide I/O data (e.g. 16, 32, 64 bits) in computer memory systems. These chips are highly vulnerable to a special type of byte error, called an $m$-spotty byte error, which can be effectively detected or corrected using byte error-control codes. The MacWilliams identity provides the relationship between the weight distribution of a code and that of its dual. This paper introduces $m$-spotty Hamming weight enumerator, joint $m$-spotty Hamming weight enumerator and split $m$-spotty Hamming weight enumerator for byte error-control codes over finite commutative Frobenius rings as well as $m$-spotty Lee weight enumerator over an infinite family of rings. In addition, MacWilliams type identities are also derived for these enumerators.
Discovering Temporal Causal Relations from Subsampled Data

Granger causal analysis has been an important tool for causal analysis for time series in various fields, including neuroscience and economics, and recently it has been extended to include instantaneous effects between the time series to explain the contemporaneous dependence in the residuals. In this paper, we assume that the time series at the true causal frequency follow the vector autoregressive model. We show that when the data resolution becomes lower due to subsampling, neither the original Granger causal analysis nor the extended one is able to discover the underlying causal relations. We then aim to answer the following question: can we estimate the temporal causal relations at the right causal frequency from the subsampled data? Traditionally this suffers from the identifiability problems: under the Gaussianity assumption of the data, the solutions are generally not unique. We prove that, however, if the noise terms are non-Gaussian, the underlying model for the highfrequency data is identifiable from subsampled data under mild conditions. We then propose an Expectation-Maximization (EM) approach and a variational inference approach to recover temporal causal relations from such subsampled data. Experimental results on both simulated and real data are reported to illustrate the performance of the proposed approaches.
Priming sentence comprehension in aphasia: effects of lexically independent and specific structural priming

ABSTRACT Background & Aims: Impaired message-structure mapping results in deficits in both sentence production and comprehension in aphasia. Structural priming has been shown to facilitate syntactic production for persons with aphasia (PWA). However, it remains unknown if structural priming is also effective in sentence comprehension. We examined if PWA show preserved and lasting structural priming effects during interpretation of syntactically ambiguous sentences and if the priming effects occur independently of or in conjunction with lexical (verb) information. Methods & Procedures: Eighteen PWA and 20 healthy older adults (HOA) completed a written sentence-picture matching task involving the interpretation of prepositional phrases (PP; the chef is poking the solider with an umbrella) that were ambiguous between high (verb modifier) and low attachment (object noun modifier). Only one interpretation was possible for prime sentences, while both interpretations were possible for target sentences. In Experiment 1, the target was presented immediately after the prime (0-lag). In Experiment 2, two filler items intervened between the prime and the target (2-lag). Within each experiment, the verb was repeated for half of the prime-target pairs, while different verbs were used for the other half. Participants’ off-line picture matching choices and response times were measured. Results: After reading a prime sentence with a particular interpretation, HOA and PWA tended to interpret an ambiguous PP in a target sentence in the same way and with faster response times. Importantly, both groups continued to show this priming effect over a lag (Experiment 2), although the effect was not as reliable in response times. However, neither group showed lexical (verb-specific) boost on priming, deviating from robust lexical boost seen in the young adults of prior studies. Conclusions: PWA demonstrate abstract (lexically-independent) structural priming in the absence of a lexically-specific boost. Abstract priming is preserved in aphasia, effectively facilitating not only immediate but also longer-lasting structure-message mapping during sentence comprehension.
Generating Artificial Social Networks

The study of complex social networks is an inherently interdisciplinary research area with applications across many fields, including psychology. Social network models describe, illustrate and explain how people are connected to each other and can, for example, be used to study information spread and interconnectedness of people with different kinds of traits. One approach to social network modelling, originating mainly in the physics literature, is to generate targeted kinds of social networks using models with specialized mechanisms while analyzing and deriving features of the models. Surprisingly though, and despite the popularity of this approach, there is no available functionality for generating a wide variety of social networks from these models. Thus, researchers are left to implement and specify these models themselves, restricting the applicability of these models. In this article, I provide a set of Matlab functions enabling the generation of artificial social networks from 22 different network models, most of them explicitly designed to capture features of social networks. Many of these models originate in the physics literature andmay therefore not be familiar to psychological researchers. I also provide an illustration of how these models can be evaluated in terms of a simulated model comparison approach and how they can be applied to psychological research. With the already existing network functionality available in Matlab and other languages, this should provide a useful extension to researchers.