Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New analysis of the free energy cost of interfaces in spin glasses

In this work we want to enhance the calculation performed by Franz, Parisi and Virasoro (FPV) (Franz et al 1992 J. Physique I 2 1869–80; Franz et al 1994 J. Physique I 4 1657–67) to estimate the free energy cost of interfaces in spin glasses and evaluate the lower critical dimension at which replica symmetry is restored. In particular we evaluate the free energy cost for a general class of effective Hamiltonians showing full replica symmetry breaking, and study the dependence of this cost on the order parameter and on the temperature. We confirm the findings of the FPV papers for the scaling of the free energy, recovering a value for the lower critical dimension of . In addition to their results we find a non-trivial dependence of the free energy density cost on the order parameter and the temperature. Apart from the case of a restricted class of effective Hamiltonians this dependence cannot be expressed in terms of functions with a clear physical interpretation, as is the case in hierarchical models (Franz et al 2009 J. Stat. Mech. P02002). In addition we connect the results on the lower critical dimension with recent simulations (Maiorano and Parisi 2018 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 115 5129–34).
Epidemiological and Bacteriological Investigation of Bovine Mastitis in Khartoum State - Sudan

A cross-sectional study was conducted in large and small dairy farms in Khartoum state from April to October 2012. The objectives were to estimate the overall prevalence of bovine mastitis (clinical and subclinical), elucidate the association of potential risk factors and to isolate and identify the bacteria associated with mastitis from milk samples. A total of 646 lactating dairy cow comprising 51 local, 590 cross and 5 pure breed cows were randomly selected and screened using California Mastitis Test (CMT) for subclinical mastitis and clinical examination for clinical mastitis. The overall individual animal prevalence was found to be 51% (6.3% clinical and 44.7% subclinical). The prevalence in different localities was 67.7% in Ombadda, 45.2% in Omdurman, 50% in East Nile and 45.1% in Khartoum. The overall herd prevalence was 90.5% (27% clinical and 63.5% subclinical). The percentage of mastitis within quarters was 24% (4% clinical and 20% subclinical, 50% in the hind quarters and 48.7% in the front quarters). Risk factors such as, locality, health score, stage of lactation, parity, previous exposure to mastitis, teat injuries, presence of ticks, yielding milk, herd size, floor disinfectant, water scarcity, drainage system, dung removing, farm fencing and education level showed statistically significant association with the occurrence of mastitis in the univariate analysis (p-value ≤ 0.25). The results of the present study also showed that locality, stage of lactation, parity, previous exposure to mastitis and yielding milk had statistically significant association with mastitis in the multivariate analysis (p-value ≤ 0.05). Twenty five subclinically positive milk samples and 25 milk samples from clinically affected cows were subjected to bacteriological examination. All 50 samples yielded growth. Among these cultured positive samples, the prevalent mastitis causing agents isolated were: 61.1% Staphylococcus spp. , 15% Streptococcus spp. , 6% Corynebacterium spp. , 3% Aerococcus spp. , 2% Micrococcus spp. and 2% Bacillus spp.
Errors in Implied Volatility Estimation

Abstract Estimating implied volatility by inverting the Black-Scholes formula is subject to considerable error when option characteristics are observed with plausible errors. Especially for options away from the money, large changes in volatility produce small changes in option prices. Conversely, small errors in option prices and other option characteristics produce large errors in implied volatilities. In the presence of small measurement errors, unobserved truncation of option prices that violate lower bounds for absence of arbitrage can also lead to systematic volatility smiles. The paper proposes feasible GLS estimators that reduce the noise and bias in implied volatility estimates.
Shot noise in magnetic tunneling structures with two-level quantum dots

We analyze shot noise in a magnetic tunnel junction with a two-level quantum dot attached to the magnetic electrodes. The considerations are limited to the case when some transport channels are suppressed at low temperatures. Coupling of the two dot's levels to the electrodes are assumed to be generally different and also spin dependent. To calculate the shot noise we apply the approach based on the full counting statistics. The approach is used to account for experimental data obtained in magnetic tunnel junctions with organic barriers. The experimentally observed Fano factors correspond to the super-Poissonian statistics, and also depend on relative orientation of the electrodes' magnetic moments. We have also calculated the corresponding spin shot noise, which is associated with fluctuations of spin current.
Robustness-based design of water distribution networks

Robustness -or lack thereofis a fundamental property of water distribution systems that has received considerable attention over the last decade. Remarkably, there is still no universally accepted measure of system robustness. Although the resilience index is generally used as a measure of robustness, it is not entirely clear to what extent the resilience captures the network’s ability to operate under pipe bursts. This paper presents a measure of system robustness that quantifies the capability of a water distribution network to maintain its function under perturbations in structure. This new index, called robustness, is used for the multi-objective design of two widely studied water distribution networks. It is also applied to a real network with a strong topological weakness that, in case of a localized failure, may impact dramatically on the rest of the system. It is found that robustness-based designs display a better performance to pipe bursts than those based on the resilience index.
Regenerative block-bootstrap confidence intervals for tail and extremal indexes

A theoretically sound bootstrap procedure is proposed for building accurate confidence intervals of parameters describing the extremal behavior of instantaneous functionals of a Harris Markov chain, namely the extremal and tail indexes. Regenerative properties of the chain (or of a Nummelin extension of the latter) are here exploited in order to construct consistent estimators of these parameters, following the approach developed in Bertail, Clemencon & Tressou (Extremes, 2009). Their asymptotic normality is first established and the standardization problem is also tackled. It is then proved that, based on these estimators, the (approximate) regenerative block-bootstrap introduced in Bertail &Clemencon (2006) yields asymptotically valid confidence intervals. In order to illustrate the performance of the methodology studied in this paper, simulation results are additionally displayed.
Multilingual Anchoring: Interactive Topic Modeling and Alignment Across Languages

Multilingual topic models can reveal patterns in cross-lingual document collections. However, existing models lack speed and interactivity, which prevents adoption in everyday corpora exploration or quick moving situations (e.g., natural disasters, political instability). First, we propose a multilingual anchoring algorithm that builds an anchor-based topic model for documents in different languages. Then, we incorporate interactivity to develop MTAnchor (Multilingual Topic Anchors), a system that allows users to refine the topic model. We test our algorithms on labeled English, Chinese, and Sinhalese documents. Within minutes, our methods can produce interpretable topics that are useful for specific classification tasks.
Occurrence and Removal of Three Antibiotics in Two Wastewater Treatment Plants in Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania

Urban wastewater treatment plants (UWTPs) are among the main sources of antibiotics release into various compartments of environment worldwide. These antibiotics have aggravated increasing anxiety, particularly as no legitimate requirements have been set for discharge into surface water bodies of these ubiquitous, persistent and biologically active substances. Massive quantities of antibiotics are used in human and veterinary medicine in all parts of the globe to treat diseases with bacterial, fungal and parasitic origins. These are also largely used in animal operations for growth promotion and for disease prophylaxis . These are often partially metabolized depending on type of antibiotics. After administration a significant fraction of the antibiotic can be excreted as a parent compound, metabolites or in conjugate forms that can be converted back to parent antibiotic. The residual antibiotics from human and animal use can enter the environment via various pathways, including wastewater, runoff from land in which manure or human waste has been applied and leaching. In this study occurrence and removal of three selected antibiotics, tetracyclines, sulfonamides and quinolones were studied in two large wastewater treatment plants in Morogoro Municipality using ELISA technique. Results indicated that the highest mean concentrations were 27.2753±2. 83878μg/l, quinolones 48.7615±7.9343. 91μg/l tetracyclines and 18.7492±5. 4906μg/l sulfonamides. The elimination of antibiotics through these wastewater treatment plants was incomplete. The removal efficiency was 28.50% tetracyclines, 11.33 % quinolones and 82.32% sulfonamides at mafisa wastewater treatment plant. At Mzumbe wastewater treatment plant removal efficiency was 2.5% tetracyclines, 7.259% quinolones and 2.28% sulfonamides.
Drought Impact and Adaptation Strategies in the Mid-Hill Farming System of Western Nepal

Climate-induced drought hazard has been emerging as one of the major challenges in the mid-hill farming system and rural livelihood in Nepal. Drought stress, in combination with century-long socio-political issues such as unequal social structure, gender discrimination, and marginalization of poor and disadvantaged groups have made smallholders more vulnerable in society. Climate changes are exacerbating issues within an already vulnerable society. Therefore, a review study on the impact of drought on the rain-fed hill farming system, and the potential adaptation measures, was carried out in the mid-hill region of western Nepal. Both agricultural impacts such as depletion of traditional varieties of crops, crop-specific diseases, low production, lack of water for irrigation; and non-agricultural impacts such as changing rural livelihood patterns, and social conflict due to agriculture and water issues were identified as major impacts. Some of the agricultural adaptation measures viz. the promotion of climate smart agriculture practices, crop diversification, and agroforestry practices seem to have been more effective in the region. At the same time, small-scale structural water harvesting measures, for instance, rainwater harvesting, conservation ponds, and irrigation channels, drip water irrigation, and an early warning system for drought events could also be an advantage in this context. Nonetheless, there are several adaptation barriers including ecological and physical constraints, human and information resource-shortages, and social barriers to adaptation. Therefore, local site-specific adaptation measures should be developed, and implemented, to increase the adaptive capacity of smallholders, and enhance the farming system in the face of the climate-induced drought scenario.
Silica removal from newsprint mill effluents with aluminum salts

The main obstacle for the implementation of reverse osmosis (RO) in a treatment chain to reuse the effluent of a newsprint mill as fresh water is the high silica content of the water, which produces severe scaling on the membrane, thus, limiting its recovery. Coagulation is one of the preferred methods to reduce silica concentration. Five aluminum based coagulants have been tested at five dosages (500-2500 ppm) and three pHs (8.3, 9.5 and 10.5). All products showed their best efficiency at the highest dosage and pH, with the exception of alum, that was more efficient at intermediate dosages. A combination of a polyaluminum nitrate sulphate with a cationic quaternary polyamine PANS-PA2), was the most efficient and versatile coagulant. It removed 97% of silica (5 ppm residual silica) at the optimal conditions (pH 10.5, 2500 ppm) and it was very efficient (76% silica removal) at pH 8.3, avoiding the need of any pH adjustment, and minimizing the conductivity and pH increase of the treated waters as well as obtaining some removal of the organic colloidal matter (≈25%).
A generalization of Berger's rigidity theorem for positively curved manifolds

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Assessment of the Contaminants in Biota from the Western Black Sea Basin in respect with MSFD Requirements in the frame of the MISIS Project

Within the Joint MISIS cruise biota samples were taken from Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish transects in order to evaluate the presence of hazardous substances in respect to Marine Strategy Framework Directive criteria and indicators under Descriptor 8 and Descriptor 9. The results for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons allow the classification of the biota samples as minimally and moderately contaminated. Except p, p’ DDT and its metabolites organochlorine pesticides concentrations are below detection limits. The polychlorinated biphenyls levels may not pose a significant risk for the ecosystem or human health. Heavy metals assessed with respect to their human health risk were below the maximum admissible limits.
An Empirical Investigation of Customer Loyalty in Telecommunication Industry in Albania

This article wants to give an insight in the construct of loyalty in the telecommunication industry. The purpose is to create an instrument of measuring customer loyalty and explore the relationship between different variables and customer loyalty in the mobile market in Albania as there are no prior studies like this. It aims to explore the relationship between the construct of service quality, customer satisfaction and organization image and seeks to analyze their role as antecedents of customer loyalty.The data are collected from mobile subscribers of different mobile companies operating in Albania through a self-administered questionnaire. The information is analyzed using factor analysis. Structural equation modeling is used to test the hypothesis. The findings confirm that service quality, customer satisfaction and organization image are factors which have a significant impact on each-other and have important contribution to the strengthening of customer loyalty in the telecommunication industry in Albania. Implications for marketers of mobile companies and implications for future research are also discussed. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015. v6n1s1p224
The North Pacific Climate Transitions of the Winters of 1976/77 and 1988/89

Abstract This paper examines characteristic changes in North Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) variability during the boreal winter (December–February) for two subperiods (1956–88 and 1977–2009) during which the 1976/77 and the 1988/89 climate transitions occurred. It is found that the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO)-like SST variability plays a dominant role in the 1976/77 climate transition, while both the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO)-like and PDO-like SST variability contribute to the 1988/89 climate transition. Furthermore, the leading mode changes from PDO-like SST variability during the period 1956–88 to NPGO-like SST variability during the period 1977–2009, indicative of an enhancement of NPGO-like SST variability since 1988. Changes in sea level pressure across the 1976/77 climate transition project strongly onto the Aleutian low pressure system. But sea level pressure changes across the 1988/89 climate transition project primarily onto the North Pacific Oscillation, which is associ.
THE MISPRICING OF ABNORMAL ACCRUALS

This paper examines the market pricing of Jones (1991) modelestimated abnormal accruals (often termed “discretionary accruals” in the prior literature) to test whether stock prices rationally reflect the one‐year‐ahead earnings implications of these accruals. Using the Mishkin (1983) and hedge‐portfolio test methods Sloan (1996) employs, I find that the market overestimates the persistence, or one‐year‐ahead earnings implications, of abnormal accruals, and consequently overprices these accruals. These results extend Subramanyam (1996) by demonstrating that the market not only prices, but also overprices abnormal accruals. They also suggest that the overpricing of total accruals that Sloan (1996) documents is due largely to abnormal accruals. The results are robust to five alternative measures of abnormal accruals, and still hold when I estimate abnormal accruals after controlling for major unusual but largely nondiscretionary accruals. The latter finding is consistent with the notion that the market overp.
Minimum Hellinger distance estimation in a semiparametric mixture model

In this report, we introduce the minimum Hellinger distance (MHD) estimation method and review its history. We examine the use of Hellinger distance to obtain a new efficient and robust estimator for a class of semiparametric mixture models where one component has known distribution while the other component and the mixing proportion are unknown. Such semiparametric mixture models have been used in biology and the sequential clustering algorithm. Our new estimate is based on the MHD, which has been shown to have good efficiency and robustness properties. We use simulation studies to illustrate the finite sample performance of the proposed estimate and compare it to some other existing approaches. Our empirical studies demonstrate that the proposed minimum Hellinger distance estimator (MHDE) works at least as well as some existing estimators for most of the examples considered and outperforms the existing estimators when the data are under contamination. A real data set application is also provided to illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed methodology.
What is the Mission of a Not-For-Profit Hospital? Evidence from California's Seismic Retrofit Mandate 1

We develop testable implications of a hospital’s response to a fixed costs shock under four theories of not-for-profit hospital behavior: (1) “for-profits in disguise,” (2) prestigemaximizers, (3) social welfare maximizers and (4) perquisite maximizers. We examine a fixed cost shock introduced by California’s recent unfunded mandate requiring hospitals to retrofit or rebuild to meet modern seismic safety standards. Since most hospitals in the State were built between 1940 and 1970, compliance costs are plausibly exogenously predetermined by underlying geologic risk. We present evidence that within counties seismic risk is uncorrelated with a host of hospital characteristics, including ownership type. Hospitals with higher seismic risk are more likely to shut down, irrespective of ownership type, but not-for-profits alone increase their mix of profitable services such as NICU days and MRI minutes. These results are most consistent with not-for-profit hospitals as perquisite maximizers and allow us to reject two of the other leading theories of not-for-profit hospital behavior “for-profits in disguise” and “pure altruism. ”
Assessing the Impacts of Global Warming on Snowpack in the Washington Cascades

Abstract The decrease in mountain snowpack associated with global warming is difficult to estimate in the presence of the large year-to-year natural variability in observations of snow-water equivalent (SWE). A more robust approach for inferring the impacts of global warming is to estimate the temperature sensitivity (λ) of spring snowpack and multiply it by putative past and future temperature rises observed across the Northern Hemisphere. Estimates of λ can be obtained from (i) simple geometric considerations based on the notion that as the seasonal-mean temperature rises by the amount δT, the freezing level and the entire snowpack should rise by the increment δT/Γ, where Γ is the mean lapse rate; (ii) the regression of 1 April SWE measurements upon mean winter temperatures; (iii) a hydrological model forced by daily temperature and precipitation observations; and (iv) the use of inferred accumulated snowfall derived from daily temperature and precipitation data as a proxy for SWE. All four methods yiel.
GUIDELINES FOR WRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources that provides an overview of a particular topic. Literature reviews are a collection of the most relevant and significant publications regarding that topic in order to provide a comprehensive look at what has been said on the topic and by whom. The basic components of a literature review include: • a description of the publication; • a summary of the publication’s main points; and • a discussion of gaps in research • an evaluation of the publication’s contribution to the topic.