Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low-Risk Anomalies in Global Fixed Income: Evidence from Major Broad Markets

This article presents the most compelling empirical evidence yet of a low-risk anomaly in fixed-income markets. The authors show that portfolios invested in bonds with the lowest risk would have delivered the largest positive alpha and highest Sharpe ratios, and portfolios invested in riskier bonds would have delivered the most negative alpha and lowest Sharpe ratios. The results proved extremely robust and were confirmed for government bonds, quasi-government and foreign government bonds, securitized and collateralized bonds, corporate investment-grade bonds, corporate high-yield bonds, emerging market bonds, and aggregates of some of these universes. They considered bonds denominated in USD, EUR, GBP, and JPY separately, and the results proved invariant to the currency. The authors confirmed the robustness of the results by using different measures of risk. The results were produced using data from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch database from January 1997, which includes 85,442 individual bonds in the 192 months analyzed.
On the Value of Target Data in Transfer Learning

We aim to understand the value of additional labeled or unlabeled target data in transfer learning, for any given amount of source data; this is motivated by practical questions around minimizing sampling costs, whereby, target data is usually harder or costlier to acquire than source data, but can yield better accuracy. To this aim, we establish the first minimax-rates in terms of both source and target sample sizes, and show that performance limits are captured by new notions of discrepancy between source and target, which we refer to as transfer exponents. Interestingly, we find that attaining minimax performance is akin to ignoring one of the source or target samples, provided distributional parameters were known a priori. Moreover, we show that practical decisions -- w.r. t. minimizing sampling costs -- can be made in a minimax-optimal way without knowledge or estimation of distributional parameters nor of the discrepancy between source and target.
The virulence factor OipA in Asian isolates of Helicobacter pylori

Persistent infection by Helicobacter pylori, a gram-negative bacterium, is associated with gastric cancer. The outer membrane protein of H. pylori OipA has been identified as a virulence factor that induces inflammation and facilitates adhesion to epithelial cells by some studies. Our lab has determined that two of our collections of eight Asian strains of H. pylori possess a second copy of oipA, a condition that is not found among European, African or other western strains of H. pylori. The potential significance of this observation arises from the fact that the prevalence of gastric cancer is much higher in Asia than that of the west. We hypothesized that the frequent merodiploid nature (two gene copies in an otherwise haploid genome) of oipA among Asian H. pylori strains may lead to increased induction of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-8 and translocation of the effector protein CagA into epithelial cells. Such increase in virulence of Asian H. pylori strains may partially explain the high prevalence of gastric cancer in Asia. However, our results indicate that knocking out each oipA allele individually or ablating both alleles in a single mutant has no effect on IL-8 secretion by AGS cells, adherence ability to AGS cells and CagA translocation of H. pylori strain 98-46. However, our results of the mRNA levels of oipA in our mutant collection indicate transcript levels vary among the mutants.
Rapid Imaging: Recent Advances in Abdominal MRI for Reducing Acquisition Time and Its Clinical Applications

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) plays an important role in abdominal imaging. The high contrast resolution offered by MRI provides better lesion detection and its capacity to provide multiparametric images facilitates lesion characterization more effectively than computed tomography. However, the relatively long acquisition time of MRI often detrimentally affects the image quality and limits its accessibility. Recent developments have addressed these drawbacks. Specifically, multiphasic acquisition of contrast-enhanced MRI, free-breathing dynamic MRI using compressed sensing technique, simultaneous multi-slice acquisition for diffusion-weighted imaging, and breath-hold three-dimensional magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography are recent notable advances in this field. This review explores the aforementioned state-of-the-art techniques by focusing on their clinical applications and potential benefits, as well as their likely future direction.
Speaking Rates of Turkish Prelingually Hearing-Impaired Children.

The aim of training for the hearing impaired children in auditory oral approach is to develop good speaking abilities. However profoundly hearing-impaired children show a wide range of spoken language abilities, some having highly intelligible speeches while others have unintelligible ones. This is due to hearing-impaired children’s speech production. While hearing-impaired children speak, segmental and prosodic errors occur, so the intelligibility of their speeches is affected. Because of these segmental and prosodic errors, speaking rate of hearing-impaired children can be slower than that of hearing children. The aim of the current study is to find out if there are any differences between normal and hearing-impaired children’s speech rate. Relationships between speech rateintelligibility, hearing loss, and ear-aided threshold of hearing impaired children were investigated as well. Twenty-five prelingual profound hearing-impaired high school students’ speech samples were compared with those of 15 normal hearing students. Speech rate data was collected by means of a laryngogrph, while speech intelligibility was decided through examining statements produced by naive listeners who rewrote statements of hearing impaired-children. Findings revealed a difference between speech rate of hearing and hearing impaired children and a relationship between speech rate and speech intelligibility. However, no relationship was found between hearing loss and speech rate, hearing loss and intelligibility, ear aided threshold and speech rate, and ear aided threshold and intelligibility. Implications for the education of hearing impaired children were provided.
Anaerobic exercise affects the saliva antioxidant/oxidant balance in high-performance pentathlon athletes

Purpose. Investigate free radical production and antioxidant buffering in military pentathletes’ saliva after their performance of a standardized, running-based anaerobic sprint test (RAST). Methods. Seven members of the Brazilian Navy pentathlon team were recruited to perform a running-based anaerobic test (~90 sec). The participants provided samples of saliva before and after the test that were analyzed for biomarkers of oxidative stress such as lipid peroxidation, total antioxidant capacity and the quantity of two specific antioxidants, glutathione and uric acid. Results. The lipid peroxidation increased ~2 fold after RAST, despite an increase in total antioxidant capacity (46%). The concentration of reduced glutathione did not change, while the uric acid concentration increased by 65%. Conclusions. The evaluation in saliva following a sprint test that lasted no more than 90 sec was sensitive enough to reveal changes in redox state.
Ngitili agrosilvipastoral systems in the United Republic of Tanzania

Gerald J. Kamwenda is Forest Officer – Management Information Systems, in the Forest and Beekeeping Division, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Dares-Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania. Environmental degradation resulting from extensive grazing and haphazard exploitation of rangeland forestry resources is a severe problem for the agropastoralists of Shinyanga, a northeastern region of the United Republic of Tanzania. Threats to livelihoods and the environment in this region include, among others, shortage of dry season fodder, deforestation, woodfuel scarcity, food insecurity and severe soil erosion. However, a traditional management system locally termed “ngitili” (dry-season fodder reserves) among the Wasukuma agropastoralists of Shinyanga has proved to be instrumental in range management and forest restoration. The system at the same time alleviates dry season fodder shortages, prevents environmental degradation such as soil erosion, and helps conserve biodiversity. It is estimated that between 350 000 and 500 000 ha of woodland were restored in the period from 1986 to 2001 (Kaale, Mlenge and Barrow, 2002). Ngitili are farmer-led initiatives evolved from traditional strategies for grazing and food security (Kamwenda, 1999). The system involves retaining an area of standing vegetation (grasses, trees, shrubs and forbs) from the onset to the end of the rainy season. The ngitili area remains closed to livestock at the beginning of the wet season and is opened up for grazing at the peak of dry season. The Wasukuma rules for protecting individual and communal ngitili are based on traditional village guards (sungusungu) and community assemblies (dagashida). These customary institutions are still important in contemporary natural resource management and have contributed to the successful management of ngitili, and particularly in adapting to the increase in herd size, which has grown above subsistence level. Unfortunately, the validity of ngitili as a silvipastoral system has remained unknown as a best practice for broader adoption or adaptation. To facilitate its extension, an iterative diagnostic and design (D&D) survey (a World Agroforestry Centre [ICRAF] methodology) was conducted in the Meatu district to identify the components, structure, management and technological specifications of the system. This survey was combined with qualitative land evaluation to establish the potential suitability of land for ngitili in comparison with extensive grazing.
In‐vitro evaluation of a ciprofloxacin and azithromycin sinus stent for Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms

Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by persistent inflammation and bacterial infection. Ciprofloxacin and azithromycin are commonly prescribed antibiotics for CRS, but the ability to provide targeted release in the sinuses could mitigate side effects and improve drug concentrations at the infected site. This study was aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the novel ciprofloxacin‐azithromycin sinus stent (CASS) in vitro.
Facial changes related to brachycephaly in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels with Chiari‐like malformation associated pain and secondary syringomyelia

Abstract Background Recent studies including an innovative machine learning technique indicated Chiari‐like malformation (CM) is influenced by brachycephalic features. Objectives Morphometric analysis of facial anatomy and dysmorphia in CM‐associated pain (CM‐P) and syringomyelia (SM) in the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (CKCS). Animals Sixty‐six client‐owned CKCS. Methods Retrospective study of anonymized T2W sagittal magnetic resonance imaging of 3 clinical groups: (1) 11 without central canal dilation (ccd) or SM (CM‐N), (2) 15 with CM‐P with no SM or <2 mm ccd (CM‐P), and (3) 40 with syrinx width ≥4 mm (SM‐S). Morphometric analysis assessed rostral skull flattening and position of the hard and soft palate relative to the cranial base in each clinical group and compared CKCS with and without SM‐S. Results Sixteen of 28 measured variables were associated to SM‐S compared to CM‐N and CM‐P. Of these 6 were common to both groups. Predictive variables determined by discriminant analysis were (1) the ratio of cranial height with cranial length (P < .001 between SM‐S and CM‐N) and (2) the distance between the cerebrum and the frontal bone (P < .001 between SM‐S and CM‐P). CM‐P had the lowest mean height of the maxillary area. Conclusions and Clinical Importance CKCS with CM‐P and SM‐S have cranial brachycephaly with osseous insufficiency in the skull with rostral flattening and increased proximity of the hard and soft palate to the cranial base. Changes are greatest with CM‐P. These findings have relevance for understanding disease pathogenesis and for selection of head conformation for breeding purposes.
Title Recosideration of the Relationship between Environmental Regulation and Comparative Advantage : The Role of Environmental Externalities on the Production Side Sub Title

The conventional view of the literature on trade and the environment is that tighter environmental policy leads to a country's comparative disadvantage in polluting goods. This paper re-examines such the relationship between environmental policy and comparative advantage by introducing negative externalities of pollution on the production side (productivity and/or factor endowments) into the standard Heckscher-Ohlin model. It is shown that, depending on the externality effects, tighter environmental policy may lead to a decrease in the autarky relative price of a pollution-intensive good.
Tensor Multi-Task Learning for Person Re-Identification

This article presents a tensor multi-task model for person re-identification (Re-ID). Due to discrepancy among cameras, our approach regards Re-ID from multiple cameras as different but related classification tasks, each task corresponding to a specific camera. In each task, we distinguish the person identity as a one-vs-all linear classification problem, where one classifier is associated with a specific person. By constructing all classifiers into a task-specific projection matrix, the proposed method could utilize all the matrices to form a tensor structure, and jointly train all the tasks in a uniform tensor space. In this space, by assuming the features of the same person under different cameras are generated from a latent subspace, and different identities under the same perspective share similar patterns, the high-order correlations, not only across different tasks but also within a certain task, can be captured by utilizing a new type of low-rank tensor constraint. Therefore, the learned classifiers transform the original feature vector into the latent space, where feature distributions across cameras can be well-aligned. Moreover, this model can be incorporated into multiple visual features to boost the performance, and easily extended to the unsupervised setting. Extensive experiments and comparisons with recent Re-ID methods manifest the competitive performance of our method.
Identification of the novel odor active compounds “p-menthane lactones” responsible for the characteristic aroma of fresh peppermint leaf

ABSTRACT The comparative aroma extract dilution analysis (cAEDA) applied to the volatile fractions of two types of fresh mint leaves (Peppermint and Spearmint) revealed 20 odor-active peaks with high FD factors (≥64). Among the perceived odorants, five “sweet/milky” and “caramel-like/spicy” notes showing high FD factors were characteristic for the peppermint aroma, and were identified as p-menthane lactone derivatives. Especially, the three p-menthane lactone derivatives, “rel-(3S,3aS,6R,7aS)-dihydromintlactone, (3S,3aS,6R)-epoxymenthofurolactone, and 2E-ethylidene-5-methylcyclohexanone”, were newly identified compounds in the peppermint. The biosynthetic routes of the p-menthane lactone derivatives have been suggested to be closely related to menthofuran. Therefore, these findings strongly suggest the possibility that the biosynthetic pathway leading to the p-menthane lactone derivatives via menthofuran plays a significantly important role in the formation of the characteristic aroma of peppermint. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT Menthofuran and p-menthane lactone derivatives were characteristic odorants of fresh peppermint leaf.
Challenges of Food Security for Migrants Living in a Regional Area of Australia: Food Availability, Accessibility and Affordability

Background: Food security is a vital element for all, particularly people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) group such as migrants who have been identified as food insecure people in previous studies. However, there is limited understanding on migrants’ food security in the regional area of Australia, Tasmania. This paper reports on a study, which aimed to examine the experiences of migrants on food security in the regional area of Australia. Methods: The cross-sectional study used questionnaires and interviews as a mixed method approach. The data was collected from 301 respondents and 33 interviewee migrants recruited via Migrant Resource Centers, cultural associations and snowball sampling. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as Chi-square tests and ordinal logistic regressions were employed as quantitative data analysis; while, thematic analysis was utilized in qualitative analysis. Results/discussion: The majority (91.0%) of respondents did not encounter circumstance where they experienced having no food to eat. Half (50.2%) of respondents travelled more than 4 km to purchase food. In terms of food affordability, over half (55.8%) of respondents indicated the high food cost; nevertheless, a high proportion were neutral regarding their satisfaction with food cost. In addition, gender, length of stay in Tasmania and region of origin were significantly associated with a migrant’s experiences with food security. In interview data, three themes were identified: food availability, accessibility, and affordability. Interviewees expressed concern about the lack of certain cultural food in Tasmania. The strategic location of shops and living places eased the ability to access food. Additionally, the cost of food particularly cultural food, were much higher in Tasmania than in big cities of Australia. Conclusion: The findings provide insight and understanding of migrants’ food security in Tasmania. There is a growing need to address food security policy related to migrants in order to improve the health and well-being of migrants in Australia.
Arrestin-3 differentially regulates platelet GPCR subsets

Abstract The principal demonstrated role of the nonvisual arrestins in vivo is to limit G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling. Nonetheless, a direct demonstration of this fundamental ability in platelets remains lacking, despite the prominent role played by GPCRs in platelet activation. This paper describes the basic characterization of the activatory responses of platelets from mice lacking arrestin-3 (arr3-/-), revealing pleiotropic roles dependent on GPCR ligand. Functionally, arrestin-3 acts as a brake on platelet aggregation regardless of ligand tested. Downstream of P2Y receptors, arr3-/- mice show increased secretion and integrin activation mirrored by enhanced intracellular calcium signaling and global PKC-dependent phosphorylation. Furthermore, P2Y12 receptor (P2Y12R) activity as assessed by ADP-mediated reduction of VASP phosphorylation is enhanced in arr3-/-mice. Downstream of PAR receptors there are similar increases in secretion and integrin activation in arr3-/- mice, together with enhanced PKC activity. Last, in arr3-/- mice the TP receptor displays unaltered PKC activity but markedly reduced calcium responses, which together with the kinetics of the aggregation response suggested a unique positive regulatory role for arrestin-3 in TP signaling. Overall, this paper reveals pleiotropic roles for arrestin-3 dependent on GPCR ligand describing for the first time a negative regulatory function for arrestin-3 in platelets.
Banks and banking sector reforms in Brazil: an exploratory study

This paper gives an overview of the banking sector in Brazil; it highlights the reforms undertaken since the late 1980s, and through to 2011, it tracks the growth of the banking sector in response to the reforms implemented thus far; and finally, it highlights the challenges facing the Brazilian banking sector. In particular, the study attempts to assess whether the Brazilian banking system has experienced any phenomenal growth since the implementation of the banking sector reforms in the late 1980’s. Since the late 1980’s, the Brazilian government has implemented a number of banking sector reforms – in order to safeguard and improve the banking sector. As a result of these reforms, the country has enjoyed a substantial growth in its banking sector; and its institutional framework has grown stronger. There has also been an improvement in the Central Bank’s oversight of the financial institutions. The Brazilian banking sector is today one of the most developed banking sectors in the emerging market world. Notwithstanding this remarkable banking sector development, the country’s banking system, like many other emerging economies’ systems, still faces some wide-ranging challenges, including high level of non-performing loans.
Analysis of the combined and isolated effects of LULC and climate change on the Upper Blue Nile River Basin ’ s streamflow using statistical trend tests , remote sensing landcover maps , and the SWAT model

Understanding the response of land use/land cover (LULC) change and climate change to the streamflow of the Nile River has become a priority issue for water management and water resource utilization in the Nile basin. This study assesses the long-term trends of rainfall and streamflow to analyze the effect of LULC and climate changes on the hydrology 15 of the Upper Blue Nile River basin. The Mann-Kendal (MK) test showed statistically insignificant increasing trends for annual, monthly, and long rainy-season rainfall series whereas no trend for daily, short rainy, and dry season rainfall series . However, the Pettitt test failed to detect any jump point in basin-wide rainfall series except for daily rainfall time series. In contrast, the MK test’ ul for daily, monthly, annual, and seasonal (long and short rainy season and dry season) timeseries streamflow showed a statistically significant positive trend. Landsat satellite images for 1973, 1985, 1995, and 2010 20 were used for LULC change detection analysis. The LULC change detection findings indicate significant expansion of cultivated land area and the reduction of forest coverage before 1995. After 1995, the forest coverage increased while the amount of cultivated land diminished. Statistically, forest coverage changed from 17.4 % to 14.4 %, 12.2 %, and 15.6 % while cultivated land changed from 62.9 % to 65.6 %, 67.5 %, and 63.9 % from 1973 to 1985, in 1995, and in 2010 respectively. The hydrological model result showed that mean annual streamflow increased by 16.9 % between the 1970s 25 and the 2000s due to the combined effect of LULC and climate change. The isolated effect of LULC change on streamflow suggested that LULC change affects surface runoff and base flow. This could be attributed to the 5.1 % reduction in forest coverage and 4.6 % increase in cultivated land area. Effects of climate change revealed that the increased rainfall intensity and number of extreme rainfall events from 1971 to 2010 have significantly affected the surface runoff and base flow. The isolated impacts of climate change are more significant as compared to the impacts of LULC change for the hydrology of 30 the study area.
Causal unCertainty PromPts abstraCt Construal of behavior

When people experience Causal Uncertainty (CU; the sense that they have failed to understand the causal structure of the social world) they search for information that will restore their understanding. Three studies explore information processing strategies that guide this search. We hypothesized that CU would promote abstract construal of behavioral information. In Study 1, CU promoted faster spontaneous trait inferences; in Studies 2 and 3, individuals with chronically activated CU beliefs, and those primed with CU, showed broader unitization of the behavioral stream (Study 2) and increased preference for abstract construal of behaviors (Study 3). We argue that these strategies reflect a search for diagnostic causal information about the social world.