Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantum dynamics of an electromagnetic mode that cannot contain N photons

Tailoring the quantum dynamics of light The energy levels of a quantum system are determined by the laws of quantum mechanics and the specifics of the physical setting. Light confined to a cavity has energy levels neatly arranged in a “ladder” of equidistant rungs, each rung corresponding to a fixed number of photons. Bretheau et al. devised a way to limit the dynamics to only the lowest few rungs by coupling the system to a qubit, which shifted the energy of one of the higher rungs. When they then drove the system at a frequency corresponding to the distance between the rungs, only the states lower in energy than the shifted state could participate. Science, this issue p. 776 Coupling to a qubit was used to limit the dynamics of a cavity electromagnetic mode. Electromagnetic modes are instrumental in building quantum machines. In this experiment, we introduce a method to manipulate these modes by effectively controlling their phase space. Preventing access to a single energy level, corresponding to a number of photons N, confined the dynamics of the field to levels 0 to N – 1. Under a resonant drive, the level occupation was found to oscillate in time, similarly to an N-level system. Performing a direct Wigner tomography of the field revealed its nonclassical features, including a Schrödinger cat–like state at half period in the evolution. This fine control of the field in its phase space may enable applications in quantum information and metrology.
The Impact of Board Gender on Bank Performance and Risk in Emerging Markets

This paper investigates the impact of board diversity on the performance and risk of banks. We put an emphasis on identifying features of the board structure that could increase performance and lower the possible losses of banks. Using a unique, hand-collected dataset of 156 banks from Central and Eastern Europe during 2005-2012, we assess whether banks with more female directors or chairwomen display lower risk and higher performance. The analysis first shows that banks with a chairwoman and a higher proportion of women among the members of a bank's board record a higher level of profitability and tend to have a lower level of credit losses. Additionally, the results suggest that the higher proportion of women among members of the bank's boards, on average, the higher the bank stability during the financial crisis. Our results also reveal that the regulatory framework in the host-country affects the relationship between board gender diversity and bank performance and risk.
Factors influencing vascular and hepatic enhancement at CT: experimental study on injection protocol using a canine model.

PURPOSE The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effects of contrast medium injection parameters on aortic, portal vein, and hepatic enhancement at spiral CT and to assess optimal injection protocol for hepatic CT. METHOD Ten 15 kg dogs underwent single level dynamic CT through the hepatic hilum at 5 s intervals just after the injection of contrast medium for 3 min. With use of different volumes (1, 2, and 3 ml/kg), injection rates (0.5, 1, and 2 ml/s), and concentrations (150, 200, and 300 mg/ml), a total of 270 spiral CT scans were performed. In each scan, time-attenuation curves of aorta, portal vein, and liver were obtained. The degree of maximum contrast enhancement (Imax), time to maximum enhancement (Tmax), and time to equilibrium phase (Teq) for to each injection protocol were analyzed. RESULTS Alterations in contrast material volume, injection rate, and concentration had significant impact on contrast enhancement of the liver. With increasing volume of contrast medium, Imax, Tmax, and Teq of aorta, portal vein, and liver increased (p < 0.005). With increasing rate of injection, on the other hand, Imax of aorta and liver increased (p < 0.05), but Tmax and Teq decreased (p < 0.005). Change of concentration of contrast medium had a significant effect on Imax of vessels (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION Maximum contrast enhancement of liver and vessels was influenced mainly by injection volume of contrast medium and the time to peak enhancement by injection rate of contrast medium. Under given amounts of contrast medium, therefore, the strategy of increasing volume by dilution and faster injection might give better Imax values without penalty for the duration of an optimal temporal window (Tmax and Teq).
Acceptance Model for e-Learning Services: A Case Study at Al-Madinah International University in Malaysia

E-learning environments are university’s infrastructural features that are increasingly important. With eLearning, teachers could impart knowledge in many ways while improving interaction with the students. Also, interactions among students could be improved. This study aimed at identifying factors that can explain the usage of e-learning environments by higher education students. A total of 201 questionnaires were answered by 201 students enrolled in Al-Madinah International University in Malaysia. The results point to use behavior of using e-learning as the factor that directly influenced behavioral intention to use elearning the most. This factor also imparted the greatest indirect impact on behavioral intention use Elearning. Simply put, student’s usage of e-learning environments is explainable to a great extent via their perceptions of the added value of these environments, which to a high degree is impacted by their belief about web-based activities and computer-assisted learning.
A review of guidelines for cardiac rehabilitation exercise programmes: Is there an international consensus?

Background Cardiac rehabilitation is an important component in the continuum of care for individuals with cardiovascular disease, providing a multidisciplinary education and exercise programme to improve morbidity and mortality risk. Internationally, cardiac rehabilitation programmes are implemented through various models. This review compared cardiac rehabilitation guidelines in order to identify any differences and/or consensus in exercise testing, prescription and monitoring. Methods Guidelines, position statements and policy documents for cardiac rehabilitation, available internationally in the English language, were identified through a search of electronic databases and government and cardiology society websites. Information about programme delivery, exercise testing, prescription and monitoring were extracted and compared. Results Leading cardiac rehabilitation societies in North America and Europe recommend that patients progress from moderate- to vigorous-intensity aerobic endurance exercise over the course of the programme, with resistance training included as an important adjunct, for maintaining independence and quality of life. North American and European guidelines also recommend electrocardiograph-monitored exercise stress tests. Guidelines for South America and individual European nations typically include similar recommendations; however, those in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand specify lower-intensity exercise and less technical assessment of functional capacity. Conclusion Higher-intensity aerobic training programmes, supplemented by resistance training, have been recommended and deemed safe for cardiac rehabilitation patients by many authorities. Based on research evidence, this may also provide superior outcomes for patients and should therefore be considered when developing an international consensus for exercise prescription in cardiac rehabilitation.
Memprediksi Financial Distress dengan Binary Logit Regression Perusahaan Telekomunikasi

In this globalization era, sub-sector telecommunication industry has rapid development as time goes by with the number of customers’ growth. However, its growth is not balanced with operational revenue development. Therefore, it is important to analyze the financial distress in telecommunication companies in order to avoid bankruptcy. This research aimed to investigate the effect of financial ratios to predict the probability of financial distress. Financial ratios indicator used profitability ratio, liquidity ratio, activity ratio, and leverage ratio. The population in this research was telecommunication companies listed in the Indonesia Stock Exchange periods 2009-2016. Based on purposive sampling method, the criteria of financial distress in this study was measured by using net operation negative two years, while statistic analysis used was logistic regression with a significance level of 10%. The result was that liquidity ratio (current ratio) and activity ratio (total asset turnover ratio) had a negative significant value, and profitability ratio(return on asset) and a leverage ratio (debt to total asset) had positive significant value to predict financial distress.
Effects of In-Situ Plasma-Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition Treatment on the Performance of HfO2/In0.53Ga0.47As Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors

In-situ plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) technique was employed for device passivation to realize a high-performance inversion-mode HfO2/In0.53Ga0. 47As metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). Excellent quality of gate dielectric is enabled by utilizing the PEALD-aluminum nitride as a pre-gate interfacial layer, followed by a post-gate remote-plasma gas treatment. In-situ PEALD treatment led to enhanced dc characteristics, such as drain current, peak transconductance, subthreshold swing, OFF leakage current, and effective electron mobility. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis indicates a reduction of In- and Ga-related signals. Furthermore, small drain current hysteresis and low-interface state density (Dit) value confirm a high interfacial quality for the high-k/III-V structure. Overall, the PEALD passivation for HfO2/In0.53Ga0. 47As interface shows a remarkable improvement on the MOSFET performance.
Lateralization of Affective Prosody in Brain and the Callosal Integration of Hemispheric Language Functions

Although affective prosody appears to be a dominant function of the right hemisphere, its degre of lateralization has not yet been established since various publications have reported affective-prosodic deficits following left brain damage in association with aphasia. This paper explores the mechanisms underlying affective-prosodic deficits following left and right brain damage by testing the ability of subjects to repeat and comprehend affective prosody under progressively reduced verbal-articulatory conditions. The results demonstrate that reducing verbal-articulatory conditions robustly improves the performance of left but not right brain damaged patients, a finding that supports the supposition that affective prosody is strongly lateralized to the right hemisphere. However, the performance of left brain damaged patients was not correlated to the presence, severity, or type of aphasic deficit(s). Based on functional-anatomic correlations for spontaneous affective prosody and affective-prosodic repetition, deep white matter lesions located below the supplementary motor area that disrupt interhemispheric connections coursing through the mid-rostral corpus callosum may contribute to affective-prosodic deficits that are both additive and independent of any aphasic deficits. In light of these and other findings, various anatomical, functional, and maturational hierarchic relationships between the affective-prosodic and verbal-linguistic aspects of language are posited in order to help further explain discrepancies that exist in the literature regarding the neurology of affective prosody.
Technology acceptance factors in e-commerce environment - Case DHL Express

Nowadays, people are more and more shifting their consumption to the Web. In logistics and freight services, shipping and tracking of shipments, which were earlier done by phone or fax, are now executed in the Web with specific shipping applications. The object of this thesis is to find out which factors form a user‟s perception of an e-commerce application and how the perception can be influenced and improved. The thesis is conducted for DHL Express by studying the acceptance of their most used shipping application, DHL IntraShip. The main goal of this research was to discover which factors form a user‟s perception about an e-commerce application and which forces moderate the determining factors. The biggest objective for the literature study is to build a model, which explains how the perception of the acceptance of an application is build and the relationships between the factors and the moderating forces behind them. Another objective of the study is to apply the constructed model to the case application and identify influencing factors in practice. The third objective was to provide information about the practical problems in the DHL IntraShip application. The theoretical study is done by analyzing different technology acceptance theories and the factors in them. Also the connection between technology acceptance factors and usability definition is searched, but eventually only loose connections were discovered. Based on this analysis, a revised e-commerce technology acceptance model for B2B business is constructed, which suggests that the factors forming a user‟s opinion about an e-commerce application are perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived reliance and trust. In addition to these, facilitating conditions are affecting straight the actual usage behavior. The moderating factors that either strengthen or weaken the importance of the determining factors were stated to be gender, age and experience of use. The empirical research is constituted by interviewing six B2B frequent users of DHL IntraShip. The chosen research method was semi-structured interviews combined with an observation study. Based on the empirical research, the revised technology acceptance model was tested and verified: perceived usefulness, ease of use reliance, trust and facilitating conditions seemed to affect the perception of DHL IntraShip. However, the factors were modified by gender, age and experience as follows: the effect of perceived usefulness is stronger for men, young and users with high experience, perceived ease of use affects stronger for older females and weaker for users with high experience, perceived reliance is stronger for novice users and trust affects more the perceptions of females.
Progressive Failure Analysis of Plain Weaves Using Damage Mechanics Based Constitutive Laws

The behavior of plain woven fabric composites is studied using three-dimensional finite elements which allows detailed modeling of the geometric complexities and spatial material variations within the fabric. Damage in the composite constituents, viz., yarn and pure matrix is modeled on a continuum basis, and related to their material constitutive behavior. The 3D constitutive laws describing pure matrix and yarn behavior are developed using a damage mechanics based approach with the dissipated energy density as the damage parameter. The strain energy dissipation (SED) concept is employed to describe the damage state and current stiffnesses of the weave constituents. A progressive failure analysis of plain woven fabrics subjected to tension and in-plane shear is carried out considering both geometric and material nonlinearities. The initiation and progression of damage within the fabric is investigated and the significant damage mechanisms outlined.
Disparities in spread and control of influenza in slums of Delhi: findings from an agent-based modelling study

Objectives This research studies the role of slums in the spread and control of infectious diseases in the National Capital Territory of India, Delhi, using detailed social contact networks of its residents. Methods We use an agent-based model to study the spread of influenza in Delhi through person-to-person contact. Two different networks are used: one in which slum and non-slum regions are treated the same, and the other in which 298 slum zones are identified. In the second network, slum-specific demographics and activities are assigned to the individuals whose homes reside inside these zones. The main effects of integrating slums are that the network has more home-related contacts due to larger family sizes and more outside contacts due to more daily activities outside home. Various vaccination and social distancing interventions are applied to control the spread of influenza. Results Simulation-based results show that when slum attributes are ignored, the effectiveness of vaccination can be overestimated by 30%–55%, in terms of reducing the peak number of infections and the size of the epidemic, and in delaying the time to peak infection. The slum population sustains greater infection rates under all intervention scenarios in the network that treats slums differently. Vaccination strategy performs better than social distancing strategies in slums. Conclusions Unique characteristics of slums play a significant role in the spread of infectious diseases. Modelling slums and estimating their impact on epidemics will help policy makers and regulators more accurately prioritise allocation of scarce medical resources and implement public health policies.
Insider trading around earnings announcements:implications for information dissemination in financial markets

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the literature in finance and economics providing a deeper understanding about insider trading and its effects over information dissemination in the financial markets. To this end, this thesis is organized in three chapters. The first chapter tests whether insiders exploit their stock’s mispricing after earnings announcements to make profitable trades. The analysis involves estimating a model of ‘normal’ market reaction to an earnings announcement and use the deviation of the fitted value from the realized market reaction as a measure of mispricing after earnings announcements. In line with the mispricing hypothesis, the results show that insiders sell (buy) more often after large positive (negative) values of our mispricing measure and earn significant post trading returns. The second chapter extends the analysis in the first chapter by exploring more deeply the source of that mispricing. Focusing on insider sales, this chapter studies whether insiders exploit investors’ sentiment during earnings announcements to make profitable trades. In line with Miller (1977) model, the results show that insiders sell in response to market reaction of earnings announcements that are associated with an increase in divergence in investors’ opinions about their firms’ valuation and more binding short sale constraints. Finally, the third chapter studies the interaction between 2 types of informed investors, insiders and short sellers, during earnings announcements. The chapter documents that insiders and short sellers are skilled information processors who compete for trading on the news released at earnings announcements. In line with competition, stock returns are significantly more negative faster for stocks with intensive trading by both traders together than in cases where they trade intensively alone. The evidence suggests that insiders and short sellers tend to accelerate their processing skills after earnings announcements and trade faster making stock prices more efficient
ACTORS AND FACTORS BEHIND THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEMS

This paper intends to analyse the perceptions of academics and professional management/administration staff about the actors and factors which were determinant in the creation and development of internal quality assurance systems in Portuguese higher education institutions. The empirical data used in this paper were collected through an online survey, distributed in the academic year 2014/2015 to the entire population of teaching staff and professional managers/administrators (working at the level of ‘qualified technician’ or similar) from both the public and private sectors. Findings show that the most important factors for the creation and development of internal quality assurance systems have been the legal requirements and demands from the higher education accreditation agency and the promotion of continuous improvement of the institution’s quality. The accreditation agency also stood out as the most important actor. Within institutions, the importance of actors decreases as we move down the hierarchy, while external stakeholders are deemed to have had little importance. These results seem to be corroborated by the respondents’ perceptions of the institutional quality culture shaped by these quality practices, with respondents relating the culture more with compliance with external requirements and centrally managed processes than with internally driven processes aiming at improving self-awareness and reflection.
Strategic use of public procurement for innovation : rationales, instruments and practices

Un nombre croissant de pays de l’OCDE encourage l’utilisation des achats publics en soutien a l’innovation, mais les discours ont ete peu suivis d’effets. L’ambition de cette these est d’aider l’elaboration des initiatives d’achat public d’innovation (API), en identifiant les obstacles a l’innovation qu’ils peuvent resoudre, ainsi que les instruments et les pratiques les plus a memes de les aider dans cet objectif. Nous identifions huit ideo-types d’API selon les defaillances de marche ou de systeme (niveau meso) auxquelles ils tentent de repondre pour stimuler l’innovation. Ces defaillances affectent soit les utilisateurs, soit les producteurs ou touchent leurs interactions. Nous les comparons a celles de niveau macro et determinons ainsi la contribution potentielle de chacun de ces ideo-types d’API aux politiques tournees vers de grandes missions. Notre typologie constitue un cadre theorique unifie associant defaillances et modalites de mise en œuvre des API. Elle en aide ainsi l’elaboration, l’evaluation et l’analyse. Certains de nos ideo-types doivent soutenir la creation de marche pour encourager l’innovation. Nous nous appuyons sur les theories economiques evolutionnistes et une serie d’etudes de cas pour comprendre comment les API peuvent y parvenir. Nous identifions leurs roles, a differentes etapes de la procedure d’achat public, dans la coordination de connaissances et d’informations pour la creation et le developpement de marche. Les API doivent notamment permettre aux utilisateurs d’interagir avec les fournisseurs de maniere appropriee et suffisamment tot dans la procedure d’achat. Les recherches sur les achats prives ont neanmoins montre qu’une telle implication precoce des fournisseurs est source de problemes de niveau micro. Une serie d’entretiens avec des acheteurs publics et des fournisseurs permet de mieux identifier les problemes affectant leur collaboration au cours d’une procedure standard d’API ou d’un dialogue competitif. La nature de ces defaillances differe selon la procedure d’achat public, du meme que leur moment d’apparition. Les entretiens revelent egalement que les acheteurs et fournisseurs percoivent differemment les pratiques a l’origine de ces defaillances. Nos resultats appellent enfin a reconsiderer l’influence du cadre juridique sur les API, et soulignent l’existence de procedures et strategies alternatives qui sont plus ou moins privilegiees par les fournisseurs. En somme, notre travail de recherche identifie differents niveaux d’obstacles a l’innovation que les API peuvent resoudre, ainsi que les mesures les plus appropriees pour les aider dans cet objectif. Il plaide en faveur d’une approche dynamique de la decision politique, qui definit problemes, instruments de politique et pratiques a chacune des etapes des procedures d’achat public, de formation des marches, et de collaboration entre acheteurs public et fournisseurs.