Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Model of Asset Pricing under Country Risk

I develop a formal model that could provide quantitative guidance to practitioners who use sovereign yield spreads in emerging market asset valuation. The model provides analytical formulas relating emerging market stock P/E ratios (and expected returns) to the corresponding average yield spread in sovereign bonds. In the model, sovereign yield spreads carry information about the likelihood of a negative regime change in an emerging market ("country risk"), under the common assumption that the regime change is associated with a hostile renegotiation of the country's foreign debt. In the model, country risk is priced because the regime change may be endogenously associated with bad states of the global economy. Data from emerging markets are consistent with some of the model's quantitative and qualitative predictions.
Mutations in TULP1, NR2E3, and MFRP genes in Indian families with autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa

Purpose To identify genes underlying autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa (ARRP) by homozygosity mapping. Methods Families with ARRP were recruited after complete ophthalmic evaluation of all members and diagnosis of RP by predefined criteria. Genomic DNA from affected members of 26 families was genotyped on Illumina single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) 6.0 K arrays with standard procedures. Genotypes were evaluated for homozygous regions that were common and concordant between affected members of each family. The genes mapping to homozygous intervals within these families were screened for pathogenic changes with PCR amplification and sequencing of coding regions. Cosegegration of sequence changes with disease was determined within each pedigree, and each variation was tested for presence in 100 unrelated normal controls. Results A genome-wide scan for homozygosity showed homozygous regions harboring the tubby like protein 1 gene (TULP1; chromosome 6) in one family, the nuclear receptor subfamily 2, group E, member 3 gene (NR2E3; chromosome 15) in three families, and the membrane frizzled-related protein gene (MFRP; chromosome 11) in one family. Screening of the three genes in the respective families revealed homozygous disease-causing mutations in three families. These included a missense mutation in TULP1, a deletion-cum-insertion in NR2E3, and a single base deletion in MFRP. Patients from all three families had a rod-cone type of dystrophy with night blindness initially. The NR2E3 and MFRP genes were associated with fundus features atypical of RP. Conclusions This study shows involvement of the TULP1, NR2E3, and MFRP genes in ARRP in Indian cases. Genome-wide screening with SNP arrays followed by a prioritized candidate gene evaluation is useful in identifying genes in these patients.
Potential Output and the Output Gap in Ireland

The performance of the Irish economy in recent years has been outstanding. Between 1994 and 2000, Ireland’s economic growth, as measured by the annual percentage change in real GDP (Gross Domestic Product), has expanded at an annual average rate of approximately 9 per cent. Over the same time period, we have also experienced annual employment growth of approximately 5 per cent and capital growth of around 4 per cent. Recent developments would suggest that such advances cannot continue forever. The capacity of an economy depends on the quantities of labour, capital and technology. Over time that capacity will grow because of the movement of employment from low output industries to high output modern sectors and advances in productivity brought about by improvements in technology. An economy may for brief periods operate above capacity. This is unlikely to persist in the long-run, as there will tend to be a wage and price adjustment process which will restore equilibrium. The capacity of an economy is not measured directly and must be estimated using information from other economic aggregates, which can be measured. Several methods have been proposed but there is no general agreement as to which method is best. This paper applies several of these methods to estimate the capacity of the Irish economy over the period 1960 to 2000. A broad degree of agreement was found between the various methods. Since 1997 the economy has operated above capacity. Forecasts of the capacity growth rate were outlined using estimates from ESRI (1999) and internal Central Bank estimates. This suggests that economy will be operating below capacity by 2004, when a more sustainable level of output is achieved. The output gap is defined as the difference between actual and capacity output. A positive gap (output greater than capacity) is associated with excess demand in the economy, which is a likely cause of inflation. In an open economy, such as Ireland, it is often argued that the main determinants of inflation are foreign prices and the exchange rate. The measures of the output gap derived in this paper indicate that they have some influence on overall inflation in Ireland, but the results were relatively weak. The relationship between “domestically generated” inflation and the output gap measures indicated a much stronger correlation.
Academic procrastination among graduate vs. undergraduate students and differences in the experience of affective and cognitive factors

Richard Crowder ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION AMONG GRADUATE VS. UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AND DIFFERENCES IN THE EXPERIENCE OF AFFECTIVE AND COGNITIVE FACTORS 2007/08 Dr. Frank Epifanio and Dr. Roberta Dihoff Master of Arts in School Psychology While not completely understood, the issue of procrastination is well known to the education field, and has been shown to be a significant problem affecting the academic achievement of college students. Research has examined the effects of procrastination across a variety of populations. However, research in the area of procrastination in relation to outcomes in graduate students compared to undergraduate students is lacking. Similarly, there is conflicting evidence as to whether academic procrastination results in lower grade point averages in college students, or whether differences exist in relation to gender and procrastination. Further, research is limited in the area of cognitive and affective factors in relation to procrastination. To investigate these areas, 74 participants (25 males and 49 females) enrolled at Rowan University participated in the study. Participants completed a confidential demographic information sheet, the Procrastination Assessment Scale-Students (PASS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS), and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D).
Characterizing the physical and genetic structure of the lodgepole pine × jack pine hybrid zone: mosaic structure and differential introgression

Understanding the physical and genetic structure of hybrid zones can illuminate factors affecting their formation and stability. In north‐central Alberta, lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud. var. latifolia) and jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb) form a complex and poorly defined hybrid zone. Better knowledge of this zone is relevant, given the recent host expansion of mountain pine beetle into jack pine. We characterized the zone by genotyping 1998 lodgepole, jack pine, and hybrids from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Minnesota at 11 microsatellites. Using Bayesian algorithms, we calculated genetic ancestry and used this to model the relationship between species occurrence and environment. In addition, we analyzed the ancestry of hybrids to calculate the genetic contribution of lodgepole and jack pine. Finally, we measured the amount of gene flow between the pure species. We found the distribution of the pine classes is explained by environmental variables, and these distributions differ from classic distribution maps. Hybrid ancestry was biased toward lodgepole pine; however, gene flow between the two species was equal. The results of this study suggest that the hybrid zone is complex and influenced by environmental constraints. As a result of this analysis, range limits should be redefined.
Review Networks for Caption Generation

We propose a novel extension of the encoder-decoder framework, called a review network. The review network is generic and can enhance any existing encoder- decoder model: in this paper, we consider RNN decoders with both CNN and RNN encoders. The review network performs a number of review steps with attention mechanism on the encoder hidden states, and outputs a thought vector after each review step; the thought vectors are used as the input of the attention mechanism in the decoder. We show that conventional encoder-decoders are a special case of our framework. Empirically, we show that our framework improves over state-of- the-art encoder-decoder systems on the tasks of image captioning and source code captioning.
Prevalence of Hypertension in China: A Cross-Sectional Study

Aims The present study aimed to assess the prevalence of hypertension among Chinese adults. Methods Data were obtained from sphygmomanometer measurements and a questionnaire administered to 46239 Chinese adults ≥20 years of age who participated in the 2007–2008 China National Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders Study. Hypertension was defined as blood pressure ≥140/90 mm Hg or use of antihypertensive medication. Results A total of 26.6% of Chinese adults had hypertension, and a significantly greater number of men were hypertensive than women (29.2% vs 24.1%, p<0.001). The age-specific prevalence of hypertension was 13.0%, 36.7%, and 56.5% among persons aged 20 to 44 years (young people), 45 to 64 years (middle-aged people), and ≥65 years (elderly people), respectively. In economically developed regions, the prevalence of hypertension was significantly higher among rural residents than among urban residents (31.3% vs 29.2%, p = 0.001). Among women or individuals who lived in the northern region, the disparity in the prevalence of hypertension between urban and rural areas disappeared (women: 24.0% vs. 24.0%, p = 0.942; northern region: 31.6% vs. 31.2%, p = 0.505). Among hypertensive patients, 45.0% were aware of their condition, 36.2% were treated, and 11.1% were adequately controlled. Conclusions The prevalence of hypertension in China is increasing. The trend of an increase in prevalence is striking in young people and rural populations. Hypertension awareness, treatment, and control are poor. Public health efforts for further improving awareness and enhancing effective control are urgently needed in China, especially in emerging populations.
Matrix rational H/sup 2/ approximation: a state-space approach using Schur parameters

This paper deals with the problem of computing a best stable rational L/sup 2/ approximation of specified order to a given multivariable transfer function. The problem is equivalently formulated as a minimization problem over the manifold of stable all-pass (or lossless) transfer functions of fixed order. Some special Schur parameters are used to describe this manifold. Such a description presents numerous advantages: it takes into account the stability constraint, possesses a good numerical behavior and provides a model in state-space form, which is very useful in practice. A rigorous and convergent algorithm is proposed to compute local minima which has been implemented using standard MATLAB subroutines. The effectiveness of our approach to solve model reduction problems as well as identification problems in frequency domain is demonstrated through several examples, including real-data simulations.
QTLs for Tolerance of Drought and Breeding for Tolerance of Abiotic and Biotic Stress: An Integrated Approach

Background The coupling of biotic and abiotic stresses leads to high yield losses in rainfed rice (Oryza sativa L.) growing areas. While several studies target these stresses independently, breeding strategies to combat multiple stresses seldom exist. This study reports an integrated strategy that combines QTL mapping and phenotypic selection to develop rice lines with high grain yield (GY) under drought stress and non-stress conditions, and tolerance of rice blast. Methodology A blast-tolerant BC2F3-derived population was developed from the cross of tropical japonica cultivar Moroberekan (blast- and drought-tolerant) and high-yielding indica variety Swarna (blast- and drought-susceptible) through phenotypic selection for blast tolerance at the BC2F2 generation. The population was studied for segregation distortion patterns and QTLs for GY under drought were identified along with study of epistatic interactions for the trait. Results Segregation distortion, in favour of Moroberekan, was observed at 50 of the 59 loci. Majority of these marker loci co-localized with known QTLs for blast tolerance or NBS-LRR disease resistance genes. Despite the presence of segregation distortion, high variation for DTF, PH and GY was observed and several QTLs were identified under drought stress and non-stress conditions for the three traits. Epistatic interactions were also detected for GY which explained a large proportion of phenotypic variance observed in the population. Conclusions This strategy allowed us to identify QTLs for GY along with rapid development of high-yielding purelines tolerant to blast and drought with considerably reduced efforts. Apart from this, it also allowed us to study the effects of the selection cycle for blast tolerance. The developed lines were screened at IRRI and in the target environment, and drought and blast tolerant lines with high yield were identified. With tolerance to two major stresses and high yield potential, these lines may provide yield stability in rainfed rice areas.
Detection and Evaluation of Emotions in Massive Open Online Courses

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have grown up to the point of becoming a new learning scenario for the support of large amounts of students. Among current research efforts related to MOOCs, some are studying the application of well-known characteristics and technologies. An example of these characteristics is adaptation, in order to personalize the MOOC experience to the learner's skills, objectives and profile. Several educational adaptive systems have emphasized the advantages of including affective information in the learner profile. Our hypothesis, based on theoretical models for the appraisal of emotions, is that we can infer the learner's emotions by analysing their actions with tools in the MOOC platform. We propose four models, each to detect an emotion known to correlate with learning gains and they have been implemented in the Khan Academy Platform. This article presents the four models proposed, the pedagogical theories supporting them, their implementation and the result of a first user study.
Design for long-term behaviour change : an exploratory study in persuasive interactive systems for people with diabetes in self-management

This thesis is protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. By reading and using the thesis, the reader understands and agrees to the following terms: 1. The reader will abide by the rules and legal ordinances governing copyright regarding the use of the thesis. 2. The reader will use the thesis for the purpose of research or private study only and not for distribution or further reproduction or any other purpose. 3. The reader agrees to indemnify and hold the University harmless from and against any loss, damage, cost, liability or expenses arising from copyright infringement or unauthorized usage.
Recovering Memories of Trauma

The controversy over the validity of repressed and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been extraordinarily bitter. Yet data on cognitive functioning in people reporting repressed and recovered memories of trauma have been strikingly scarce. Recent laboratory studies have been designed to test hypotheses about cognitive mechanisms that ought to be operative if people can repress and recover memories of trauma or if they can form false memories of trauma. Contrary to clinical lore, these studies have shown that people reporting CSA histories are not characterized by a superior ability to forget trauma-related material. Other studies have shown that individuals reporting recovered memories of either CSA or abduction by space aliens are characterized by heightened proneness to form false memories in certain laboratory tasks. Although cognitive psychology methods cannot distinguish true memories from false ones, these methods can illuminate mechanisms for remembering and forgetting among people reporting histories of trauma.
Striatonigrostriatal Pathways in Primates Form an Ascending Spiral from the Shell to the Dorsolateral Striatum

Clinical manifestations in diseases affecting the dopamine system include deficits in emotional, cognitive, and motor function. Although the parallel organization of specific corticostriatal pathways is well documented, mechanisms by which dopamine might integrate information across different cortical/basal ganglia circuits are less well understood. We analyzed a collection of retrograde and anterograde tracing studies to understand how the striatonigrostriatal (SNS) subcircuit directs information flow between ventromedial (limbic), central (associative), and dorsolateral (motor) striatal regions. When viewed as a whole, the ventromedial striatum projects to a wide range of the dopamine cells and receives a relatively small dopamine input. In contrast, the dorsolateral striatum (DLS) receives input from a broad expanse of dopamine cells and has a confined input to the substantia nigra (SN). The central striatum (CS) receives input from and projects to a relatively wide range of the SN. The SNS projection from each striatal region contains three substantia nigra components: a dorsal group of nigrostriatal projecting cells, a central region containing both nigrostriatal projecting cells and its reciprocal striatonigral terminal fields, and a ventral region that receives a specific striatonigral projection but does not contain its reciprocal nigrostriatal projection. Examination of results from multiple tracing experiments simultaneously demonstrates an interface between different striatal regions via the midbrain dopamine cells that forms an ascending spiral between regions. The shell influences the core, the core influences the central striatum, and the central striatum influences the dorsolateral striatum. This anatomical arrangement creates a hierarchy of information flow and provides an anatomical basis for the limbic/cognitive/motor interface via the ventral midbrain.
The Caveolin‐3 G56S sequence variant of unknown significance: Muscle biopsy findings and functional cell biological analysis

In the era of next‐generation sequencing, we are increasingly confronted with sequence variants of unknown significance. This phenomenon is also known for variations in Caveolin‐3 and can complicate the molecular diagnosis of the disease. Here, we aimed to study the ambiguous character of the G56S Caveolin‐3 variant.
Of categorizers and describers: an evaluation of quantitative measures for tagging motivation

While recent research has advanced our understanding about the structure and dynamics of social tagging systems, we know little about (i) the underlying motivations for tagging (why users tag), and (ii) how they influence the properties of resulting tags and folksonomies. In this paper, we focus on problem (i) based on a distinction between two types of user motivations that we have identified in earlier work: Categorizers vs. Describers. To that end, we systematically define and evaluate a number of measures designed to discriminate between describers, i.e. users who use tags for describing resources as opposed to categorizers, i.e. users who use tags for categorizing resources. Subsequently, we present empirical findings from qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the measures on real world tagging behavior. In addition, we conducted a recommender evaluation in which we study the effectiveness of each of the presented measures and found the measure based on the tag content to be the most accurate in predicting the user behavior closely followed by a content independent measure. The overall contribution of this paper is the presentation of empirical evidence that tagging motivation can be approximated with simple statistical measures. Our research is relevant for (a) designers of tagging systems aiming to better understand the motivations of their users and (b) researchers interested in studying the effects of users' tagging motivation on the properties of resulting tags and emergent structures in social tagging systems
Spitzer Space Telescope Observations of Kepler’s Supernova Remnant: A Detailed Look at the Circumstellar Dust Component

We present 3.6-160 μm infrared images of Kepler's supernova remnant (SN 1604) obtained with the IRAC and MIPS instruments on the Spitzer Space Telescope. We also present MIPS SED low-resolution spectra in the 55-95 μm region. The observed emission in the MIPS 24 μm band shows the entire shell. Emission in the MIPS 70 μm and IRAC 8 μm bands is seen only from the brightest regions of 24 μm emission, which also correspond to the regions seen in optical Hα images. Shorter wavelength IRAC images are increasingly dominated by stars, although faint filaments are discernible. The SED spectrum of shows a faint continuum dropping off to longer wavelengths and confirms that strong line emission does not dominate the mid-IR spectral region. The emission we see is due primarily to warm dust emission from dust heated by the primary blast wave; no excess infrared emission is observed in regions where supernova ejecta are seen in X-rays. We use models of the dust to interpret the observed 70/24 μm ratio and constrain the allowed range of temperatures and densities. We estimate the current mass of dust in the warm dust component to be 5.4 × 10-4 M☉, and infer an original mass of about 3 × 10-3 M☉ before grain sputtering. The MIPS 160 μm band shows no emission belonging to the remnant. We place a conservative but temperature-dependent upper limit on any cold dust component roughly a factor of 10 below the cold dust mass inferred from SCUBA observations. Finally, we comment on issues relevant to the possible precursor star and the supernova type.
Calculation of corona voltage-current characteristics in air

This paper focuses on numerical simulations of positive dc corona in air in coaxial cylindrical electrode arrangement. The study aimed at developing a computer model accounting for background physical processes in corona discharge and its verification by means of comparison of calculated corona characteristics with experimental data. Several parameters of corona, namely, inception voltages, voltage current characteristics and onset field strength values were used for evaluations of the model performance. The validated model was further utilized to investigate the effects of ion mobilities on corona current and variations of the ionization intensity on corona inception voltages.
Additive results for the generalized

In this paper we investigate additive properties of the generalized Drazin inverse in a Banach algebra. We find some new conditions under which the generalized Drazin inverse of the sum a + b could be explicitly expressed in terms of a, a, b, b. Also, some recent results of Castro and Koliha (Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh Sect. A 134 (2004), 1085-1097) are extended. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 15A09, 46H30,46H05, 15A33.