Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Backtesting Value-at-Risk: From Dynamic Quantile to Dynamic Binary Tests

In this paper we propose a new tool for backtesting that examines the quality of Value-at- Risk (VaR) forecasts. To date, the most distinguished regression-based backtest, proposed by Engle and Manganelli (2004), relies on a linear model. However, in view of the di- chotomic character of the series of violations, a non-linear model seems more appropriate. In this paper we thus propose a new tool for backtesting (denoted DB) based on a dy- namic binary regression model. Our discrete-choice model, e.g. Probit, Logit, links the sequence of violations to a set of explanatory variables including the lagged VaR and the lagged violations in particular. It allows us to separately test the unconditional coverage, the independence and the conditional coverage hypotheses and it is easy to implement. Monte-Carlo experiments show that the DB test exhibits good small sample properties in realistic sample settings (5% coverage rate with estimation risk). An application on a portfolio composed of three assets included in the CAC40 market index is nally proposed.
0 60 40 36 v 1 5 A pr 2 00 6 Phenomenological Models of Socio-Economic Network Dynamics

We study a general set of models of social network evolution a nd dynamics. The models consist of both a dynamics on the network and evolution of the network. Links a re formed preferentially between ’similar’ nodes, where the similarity is defined by the particular process tak ing place on the network. The interplay between the two processes produces phase transitions and hysteresis, a s een using numerical simulations for three specific processes. We obtain analytic results using mean field appro ximations, and for a particular case we derive an exact solution for the network. In common with real-world so cial networks, we find coexistence of high and low connectivity phases and history dependence.
Test Accuracy of Short Screening Tests for Diagnosis of Delirium or Cognitive Impairment in an Acute Stroke Unit Setting

Background and Purpose— Guidelines recommend cognitive screening in acute stroke. Various instruments are available, with no consensus on a preferred tool. We aimed to describe test accuracy of brief screening tools for diagnosis of cognitive impairment and delirium in acute stroke. Methods— We collected data on sequential stroke unit admission in a single center. Four assessors trained in cognitive testing independently performed screening and reference tests. Brief assessments comprised the following: 10- and 4-point Abbreviated Mental Test (AMT-10; AMT-4); 4-A Test (4AT); Clock Drawing Test (CDT); Cog-4; and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). We also recorded the multidisciplinary team’s informal review using single question (SQ). We compared against reference standards of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and Confusion Assessment Method for delirium using usual diagnostic cutpoints. For MoCA, we described effects of lowering the diagnostic threshold to MoCA <24 and MoCA <20. We described sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values. Results— Over a 10-week period, 111 subjects had cognitive assessment data. Subjects were 50% male (n=55), and median age was 74 years (interquartile range, 64–85). AMT-4, AMT-10, and SQ all had excellent (1.00) specificity for detection of cognitive impairment, although sensitivity was poor (all <0.60). The 4AT had greatest sensitivity for detecting delirium (1.00 [confidence interval [CI], 0.74–1.00]) and reasonable specificity (0.82 [CI, 0.72–0.89]). Properties of 4AT for detection of cognitive impairment, at the traditional MoCA threshold, were also good (sensitivity, 0.86; specificity, 0.78). Using diagnostic thresholds of MoCA ⩽26, <24, and <20 gave proportions with cognitive impairments of 86%, 61%, and 49%, respectively, with resulting changes in screening test properties. At lower MoCA thresholds, CDT had favorable sensitivity and specificity (MoCA <20: sensitivity, 0.93, specificity, 0.66; MoCA <24: sensitivity, 0.85, specificity, 0.77). Conclusions— Many brief screening assessments are specific but not sensitive for detection of cognitive impairment in acute stroke. Our primary analysis suggests that 4AT is a reasonable choice for delirium and cognitive screening in this setting. However, these data are based on standard MoCA diagnostic threshold and may not be suited for an acute stroke population.
Change management at resolution health East Africa ltd, Kenya

The main purpose of this case study is to provide some vital specific plans and actions necessary to successfully manage change in an organization. Specifically, find out how these actions can be applied at Resolution Health East in a systematic approach to helping the individuals impacted by change to be successful by building support, addressing resistance and developing the required knowledge and ability to manage change successfully. The objectives of this study are to establish change management practices and factors influencing change management at Resolution Health. In this context it is clear that Medical Insurance Providers today operate in an environment characterized by greater complexity than at any time in the past. Effective change management is thus crucial to any organizations in Medical Insurance Industry ability to adapt and react to highly competitive and continuously evolving business environment. This study has employed case study research design. Using an open ended interview guide, primary data was collected where the researcher did pose the questions to the informed members of the focus group in the organization. The information contained in the interview guide included Demographic, Awareness, Culture, Change goals, Attitude and General Information Category. To help encapsulate the objectives of the study, content analysis was adopted to analysis the data. From the findings of this study, for a successful change management to be achieved. Resolution Health requires to have an effective communication channel, full and active executive support, employee involvement and organizational planning and analysis and a widespread perceived need for the change. Understanding and responding to the range of human emotions during times of intense change, is also very critical. This research project has provided an insight into change management practices, influential factors in managing change and recommends that RHEAL should exceedingly investment in Research and Development, change monitoring and evaluation.Etc which will increases it's ability to successfully handle the complex process of change management.
Comparison of the Efficacies of Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification, Fluorescence Smear Microscopy and Culture for the Diagnosis of Tuberculosis

Background Despite the advent of novel diagnostic techniques, smear microscopy remains as the most practical test available in resource-limited settings for tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis. Due to the low sensitivity of microscopy and the long time required for culture, feasible and accessible rapid diagnostic methods are urgently needed. Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) is a promising nucleic-acid amplification assay, which could be accessible, cost-effective and more suited for use with unpurified samples. Methodology/Principal Findings In the current study, the objective was to assess the efficacy of a LAMP assay for tuberculosis compared with fluorescence smear microscopy as well as Löwenstein-Jensen (LJ) and Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT) cultures for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis using sputum samples. Smear microscopy and culture were performed for decontaminated and concentrated sputum from TB suspects and the LAMP was also performed on these specimens. The LAMP and smear microscopy were compared, in series and in parallel, to culture. LAMP and smear microscopy showed sensitivities of 79.5% and 82.1% respectively and specificities of 93.8% and 96.9% respectively, compared to culture. LAMP and smear in series had sensitivity and specificity of 79.5% and 100.0% respectively. LAMP and smear in parallel had sensitivity and specificity of 82.1% and 90.6% respectively. Conclusions/Significance The overall efficacies of LAMP and fluorescence smear microscopy in the current study were high and broadly similar. LAMP and smear in series had high specificity (100.0%) and can be used as a rule-in test combination. However, the performance of LAMP in smear negative samples was found to be insufficient.
The ecology of chickens: an examination of the introduction of the domestic chicken across Europe after the Bronze Age.

The domestic fowl, Gallus gallus domesticus, or chicken, features as an important part of human society, culture and subsistence, both now and in the past. Despite studies into the origins and spread of many of the other domestic animals, the origins and nature of spread of the chicken west and into Europe has been largely neglected due to a lack of sufficient compiled evidence. It is widely accepted that chickens are descended from junglefowl in Asia and South East Asia, but more precise origins of the chicken are debated. As a bird with limited flight capability, the chicken has been transported worldwide by humans. Once the chicken arrived in Europe, very little attention has been given to the human-chicken interactions which governed its success, and enabled it to become permanently established in a region very different to where its ancestor originates- geographically, environmentally and culturally. This study compiles zooarchaeological evidence for the chicken across Europe, combines it with evidence from archaeology and anthropology, and takes the novel approach of applying ecological and biogeographical techniques. Such techniques complement traditional methods of archaeological assessment, and provide new and unique insights into the origins, spread and impact of this significant species. I establish the regions which are most suitable for initial domestication, and demonstrate that Europe would not be suitable for indigenous populations of the ancestor bird. This informs us about the human investment required to m aintain early populations of chicken. I identify India as the most likely origin of early European chickens, based on environmental suitability, presence of the ancestor species, and practical routes from Asia to Europe; but propose multiple centres of domestication in Asia. Once the chicken reaches Europe, multiple diffusion events associated with specific cultures are identified, primarily via trade routes. The niche of the ancestor is compared to the niche of the early domestic chicken and found to have shifted, indicating adaptation under domestication. The introduction of the chicken into Europe as a non-native species is shown to have directly and indirectly affected certain species, but the chicken itself is most affected by human agency. The date, location and context for the faunal remains, combined with literary evidence and material culture, establishes change and continuity in both use and perception of chickens by human societies. The conclusions and methods presented in this thesis are relevant to several subjects, including archaeology, zooarchaeology, ecology and conservation, and demonstrate the benefits of a multi- disciplinary approach.
A Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based analysis of modern South African rodent distributions, habitat use, and environmental tolerances

Goals of this study were to: (1) develop distributional maps of modern rodent genera throughout the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland by georeferencing museum specimens; (2) assess habitat preferences for genera by cross-referencing locality position with South African vegetation; and (3) identify mean annual precipitation and temperature range where the genera are located. Conterminous South Africa including the countries of Lesotho and Swaziland Digital databases of rodent museum specimens housed in the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, South Africa (DM), and the Division of Mammals, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, United States (NMNH), were acquired and then sorted into a subset of specimens with associated coordinate data. The coordinate data were then used to develop distributional maps for the rodent genera present within the study area. Percent habitat occupation and descriptive statistics for six climatic variables were then determined for each genus by cross-referencing locality positions with vegetation and climatic maps. This report presents a series of maps illustrating the distribution of 35 rodent genera based on 19,471 geo-referenced specimens obtained from two major collections. Inferred habitat use by taxon is provided for both locality and specimen percent occurrence at three hierarchical habitat levels: biome, bioregion, and vegetation unit. Descriptive statistics for six climatic variables are also provided for each genus based on locality and specimen percent incidence. As rodent faunas are commonly used in paleoenvironmental reconstructions, an accurate assessment of rodent environmental tolerance ranges is necessary before confidence can be placed in an actualistic model. While the data presented here represent only a subset of the modern geographic distributions for many of the taxa examined, a wide range of environmental regimes are observed, suggesting that more research is necessary in order to accurately reconstruct an environmental signature when these taxa are found in the fossil record.
Quality assessment for Linked Data: A Survey

The development and standardization of semantic web technologies has resulted in an unprecedented volume of data being published on the Web as Linked Data (LD). However, we observe widely varying data quality ranging from extensively curated datasets to crowdsourced and extracted data of relatively low quality. In this article, we present the results of a systematic review of approaches for assessing the quality of LD. We gather existing approaches and analyze them qualitatively. In particular, we unify and formalize commonly used terminologies across papers related to data quality and provide a comprehensive list of 18 quality dimensions and 69 metrics. Additionally, we qualitatively analyze the 30 core approaches and 12 tools using a set of attributes. The aim of this article is to provide researchers and data curators a comprehensive understanding of existing work, thereby encouraging further experimentation and development of new approaches focused towards data quality, specifically for LD.
Endocrine and radiological studies in patients with molecularly confirmed CHARGE syndrome.

CONTEXT CHARGE syndrome is a complex of congenital malformations, and CHD7 has been reported as a major gene involved in the etiology. OBJECTIVE We performed endocrine and radiological studies to determine whether endocrinological disorders such as hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, GH deficiency, or hypothyroidism are involved and also whether olfactory bulb hypoplasia and semicircular canal aplasia are major signs in patients with molecularly confirmed CHARGE syndrome. DESIGN Clinical features, endocrinological assessments, and radiological abnormalities in eight children (five boys and three girls) whose molecular analyses were available were evaluated among 15 children clinically diagnosed with CHARGE syndrome at our institute. RESULTS We identified heterozygous CHD7 mutations in all patients screened for mutations. Four boys had micropenis and/or cryptorchidism. One was diagnosed with GH deficiency, and the other was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Computed tomography findings revealed aplasia of the semicircular canals. Magnetic resonance imaging studies of the olfactory bulb region revealed abnormal olfactory sulci and bulb development in all children. CONCLUSION We suggest that hypogonadism, GH deficiency, and hypothyroidism could be possible endocrinological defects in patients with CHD7 mutations and that olfactory bulb hypoplasia as well as semicircular canal aplasia should be considered as a major sign for CHARGE syndrome and recommend a computed tomography scan of the temporal bone and magnetic resonance imaging study of the olfactory bulb region.
Exact and approximate graph matching using random walks

In this paper, we propose a general framework for graph matching which is suitable for different problems of pattern recognition. The pattern representation we assume is at the same time highly structured, like for classic syntactic and structural approaches, and of subsymbolic nature with real-valued features, like for connectionist and statistic approaches. We show that random walk based models, inspired by Google's PageRank, give rise to a spectral theory that nicely enhances the graph topological features at node level. As a straightforward consequence, we derive a polynomial algorithm for the classic graph isomorphism problem, under the restriction of dealing with Markovian spectrally distinguishable graphs (MSD), a class of graphs that does not seem to be easily reducible to others proposed in the literature. The experimental results that we found on different test-beds of the TC-15 graph database show that the defined MSD class "almost always" covers the database, and that the proposed algorithm is significantly more efficient than top scoring VF algorithm on the same data. Most interestingly, the proposed approach is very well-suited for dealing with partial and approximate graph matching problems, derived for instance from image retrieval tasks. We consider the objects of the COIL-100 visual collection and provide a graph-based representation, whose node's labels contain appropriate visual features. We show that the adoption of classic bipartite graph matching algorithms offers a straightforward generalization of the algorithm given for graph isomorphism and, finally, we report very promising experimental results on the COIL-100 visual collection.
Humor processing, mentalizing, and executive function in normal aging

Recent investigations have emphasized the importance of the prefrontal cortex for humor processing. Although the prefrontal cortex is thought to be affected by normal aging, relatively little work has been carried out to investigate the effects of aging on humor processing. In the present investigation participants in three age groups were assessed on a humor comprehension task. They then answered mentalistic and nonmentalistic questions. Executive tasks were also administered. The older group selected significantly fewer correct punchlines from alternatives than the other groups. They were also poorer at answering mentalistic questions, but did not differ significantly for nonmentalistic questions. The findings of the present investigation showed altered in humor processing in normal aging, and this appeared to be related to mentalizing ability. (JINS, 2006, 12, 184–191.)
Corticotrophin-Releasing Factor (CRF) and the Urocortins Are Potent Regulators of the Inflammatory Phenotype of Human and Mouse White Adipocytes and the Differentiation of Mouse 3T3L1 Pre-Adipocytes

Chronic activation of innate immunity takes place in obesity and initiated by the hypertrophic adipocytes which obtain a pro-inflammatory phenotype. The corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) family of neuropeptides and their receptors (CRF1 and CRF2) affect stress response and innate immunity. Adipose tissue expresses a complete CRF system. The aim of this study was to examine the role of CRF neuropeptides in the immune phenotype of adipocytes assessed by their expression of the toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4), the production of inflammatory cytokines IL-6, TNF-α and IL-1β, chemokines IL-8, monocyte attractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and of the adipokines adiponectin, resistin and leptin. Our data are as follows: (a) CRF, UCN2 and UCN3 are expressed in human white adipocytes as well as CRFR1a, CRFR2a and CRFR2b but not CRFR2c. 3T3L1 pre-adipocytes and differentiated adipocytes expressed both CRF1 and CRF2 receptors and UCN3, while UCN2 was detected only in differentiated adipocytes. CRF2 was up-regulated in mouse mature adipocytes. (b) CRF1 agonists suppressed media- and LPS-induced pre-adipocyte differentiation while CRF2 receptor agonists had no effect. (c) In mouse pre-adipocytes, CRF2 agonists suppressed TLR4 expression and the production of IL-6, CXCL1 and adiponectin while CRF1 agonists had no effect. (d) In mature mouse adipocytes LPS induced IL-6 and CXCL1 production and suppressed leptin. (e) In human visceral adipocytes LPS induced IL-6, TNF-α, IL-8, MCP-1 and leptin production and suppressed adiponectin and resistin. (f) In mouse mature adipocytes CRF1 and CRF2 agonists suppressed basal and LPS-induced production of inflammatory cytokines, TLR4 expression and adiponectin production, while in human visceral adipocytes CRF and UCN1 suppressed basal and LPS-induced IL-6, TNF-α, IL-8 and MCP-1 production. In conclusion, the effects of the activation of CRF1 and CRF2 may be significant in ameliorating the pro-inflammatory activity of adipocytes in obesity.
The Effect of User-Developed DSS Applications of Forecasting Decision-Making Performance in an Experimental Setting

Abstract:A primary assumption of decision support systems (dss) is that their use will result in more effective decision making. Using a repeated measures design, we conducted an experimental gaming study to investigate the effect of user-developed dss applications on the decision maker’s ability to forecast his or her actual gaming results.The findings of this study support the proposition that user-developed dss models lead to more effective decision making. Subjects in the dss modeling group made significantly better forecasts of their firm’s performance than did those in the non-modeling group.
Anisakidosis: a cause of intestinal obstruction from eating sushi

We report a case of strangulating small bowel obstruction in a 60-yr-old Japanese woman caused by anisakidosis (previously known as anisakiasis). With the increasing popularity of Japanese cuisine such as sushi in the United States, the incidence of anisakidosis is expected to increase. Intestinal anisakidosis can now be treated temporarily, but this condition may cause a serious obstruction afterwards, as evidenced by this particular case. Over 13,500 cases were reviewed in both the Japanese and English literature, and we discuss the prevention of anisakidosis without negatively altering the taste of the raw fish.