Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Limits on intermediate-mass black holes in six Galactic globular clusters with integral-field spectroscopy

Context. The formation of supermassive black holes at high redshift still remains a puzzle to astronomers. No accretion mechanism can explain the fast growth from a stellar mass black hole to several billion solar masses in less than one Gyr. The growth of supermassive black holes becomes reasonable only when starting from a massive seed black hole with mass on the order of 10 -10 M. Intermediate-mass black holes are therefore an important field of research. Especially the possibility of finding them in the centers of globular clusters has recently drawn attention. Searching for kinematic signatures of a dark mass in the centers of globular clusters provides a unique test for the existence of intermediate-mass black holes and will shed light on the process of black-hole formation and cluster evolution. Aims. We are investigating six galactic globular clusters for the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole at their centers. Based on their kinematic and photometric properties, we selected the globular clusters NGC 1851, NGC 1904 (M 79), NGC 5694, NGC 5824, NGC 6093 (M 80), and NGC 6266 (M 62). Methods. We used integral field spectroscopy to obtain the central velocity-dispersion profile of each cluster. In addition we completed these profiles with outer kinematic points from previous measurements for the clusters NGC 1851, NGC 1094, NGC 5824, and NGC 6093. We also computed the cluster photometric center and the surface brightness profile using HST data. After combining these datasets we compared them to analytic Jeans models. We used varying M/L profiles for clusters with enough data points in order to reproduce their kinematic profiles in an optimal way. Finally, we varried the mass of the central black hole and tested whether the cluster is better fitted with or without an intermediate-mass black hole. Results. We present the statistical significance, including upper limits, of the black-hole mass for each cluster. NGC 1904 and NGC 6266 provide the highest significance for a black hole. Jeans models in combination with a M/L profile obtained from N-body simulations (in the case of NGC 6266) predict a central black hole of M = (3 ± 1) × 10 M for NGC 1904 and M = (2 ± 1) × 10 M for NGC 6266. Furthermore, we discuss the possible influence of dark remnants and mass segregation at the center of the cluster on the detection of an IMBH.
Justice Oriented Recovery Strategies and Customer Retention in The Retail Banking Industry in Malaysia

The service recovery and customer retention has caught the attention of researchers and academics recently. Despite the popularity of the subject, there were still not much known about how the service recovery strategies influenced customer retention in service organizations. Although service firms made the best effort, service failures were inevitable. Service recoveries were the efforts made by firms to bring back aggrieved customer to satisfaction. If recovery strategies were not prompt, proper and effective, the frustrating customers would defect to competitor. Thus, service firms were losing customers and revenues. Customer retention was vital and dominant key to business competitiveness and profitability. This research tested three dimensions under justice oriented recovery strategies (JORS). Data were collected by distributing the structured 28 item-questionnaires to 237 post graduate students of Malaysian public universities randomly selected. Results of the analysis found that all strategies were correlated with customer retention strategies. Multiple regression analysis found that, the customer retention variance was explained by 63.4% of the service recovery strategies. The research has thrown some lights on the understanding of how service recovery strategies have influenced customer retention. Apart from that a new instrument has been developed. It was recommended that future research be conducted in legal services, business consultancy or educational services using such instrument which perhaps would yield more interesting result.
Average Fe K$\mathsf{\alpha}$ emission from distant AGN

Context. One of the most important parameters in the XRB ( X-ray background ) synthesis models is the average efficiency of accretion onto SMBH ( super-massive black holes ). This can be inferred from the shape of broad relativistic Fe lines seen in X-ray spectra of AGN ( active galactic nuclei ). Several studies have tried to measure the mean Fe emission properties of AGN at different depths with very different results. Aims. We compute the mean Fe emission from a large and representative sample of AGN X-ray spectra up to redshift ~3.5. Methods. We developed a method of computing the rest-frame X-ray average spectrum and applied it to a large sample (more than 600 objects) of type 1 AGN from two complementary medium sensitivity surveys based on XMM-Newton data, the AXIS and XWAS samples. This method makes use of medium-to-low quality spectra without needing to fit complex models to the individual spectra but with computing a mean spectrum for the whole sample. Extensive quality tests were performed by comparing real to simulated data, and a significance for the detection of any feature over an underlying continuum was derived. Results. We detect with a 99.9% significance an unresolved Fe K α emission line around 6.4 keV with an EW ~ 90 eV, but we find no compelling evidence of any significant broad relativistic emission line in the final average spectrum. Deviations from a power law around the narrow line are best represented by a reflection component arising from cold or low-ionization material. We estimate an upper limit for the EW of any relativistic line of 400 eV at a 3 σ confidence level. We also marginally detect the so-called Iwasawa-Taniguchi effect on the EW for the unresolved emission line, which appears weaker for higher luminosity AGN. Conclusions. We computed an upper limit for the average relativistic Fe K α line contribution that is significantly lower than previously reported values from similar analyses. Our results, however, are in excellent agreement with individual analyses of local AGN samples. We attribute this difference either to our more sophisticated method of modeling the underlying continuum, to intrinsic differences in source populations, and/or to the uneven data quality of the individual spectra of the various samples.
Analysis of the Effects of the Implementation of Cooperative Learning in Physical Education

Our research was oriented to test the effects of a structured program of cooperative learning in Physical Education classes with students in grades 5 and 6 of primary school, with and without previous experience with this methodology. In a second phase we sought to determine how students perceived the received classes for a time later.We analysed data collected during implementation, through cooperative learning, of two teaching units to a total of six groups of students; in addition, a number of interviews, five individual and one collective, were carried out to a total of 10 former students who had left school between one and five years earlier.The results show the positive effects of cooperative learning on students' motor performance, and some social achievements such as a greater autonomy of the students in the learning process, an increasing in prosocial behaviours and the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs. On the other hand, as time went on, the students rated the received classes as cooperative, participatory, funny and useful, emphasizing peer support as a key factor that enabled them to learn in Physical Education.
Redistributive Politics, Power Sharing and Fairness

We study the effect of power sharing over income redistribution among different socio-economic groups in a model of redistributive politics with fairness concern. We prove that a unique pure-strategy equilibrium exists under fairly general conditions; and we show that equilibrium transfers depend on the interplay of four main factors: (i) the gap between the population and the group average pre-tax income; (ii) the relative ideological neutrality of the poor, (iii) partiesâ€™ and votersâ€™ concern with income inequality, and (iv) the proportionality of the electoral rule. A number of comparative statics predictions emerge from our characterization. Among them, our analysis shows that the net transfers to the middle class and the rich (resp., the poor) increase (resp., decrease) with power sharing disproportionality. Further, we prove that the Gini coefficient associated with the distribution of disposable incomes also rises with the disproportionality of the power sharing rule, which amount to say that income inequality rises as policymaking power gets more concentrated in the majority winning party. We confront these predictions to the data, using an unbalanced panel of developed and developing democracies. The empirical evidence strongly supports both, the positive effect of the income gap over the group transfers, and the relationship between the Gini index (and respectively, the group transfers) and power sharing disproportionality.
The Impact of Voluntary and Mandatory IAS/IFRS Adoption: A Review

Several studies examined the capital market effects and the impact on accounting quality after the mandatory IAS/IFRS adoption. Two different approaches have been widely adopted: the pro-standard and the pro-incentive. According to the former, the IAS/IFRS standards have a positive impact as a result of their higher quality, compared to local GAAP. On the other hand, the pro-incentive approach emphasizes the importance of incentives, especially ones related to the institutional settings, and predicts greater effects in countries characterized by strong legal systems and effective enforcement mechanisms. The most recent empirical evidence seems to support the pro-incentive approach. This literature review underlines the evolution of this research stream, stressing the different used approaches, in order to explain their mixed results, and trying to explain the implied reasons why recent papers move to a different approach which seems to provide a finer and more dynamic interpretation of the pro-incentive hypothesis, weakening the presumed influence of the preexisting legal systems and underlining the role played by firms’ incentives per se and by changes in enforcement mechanisms.
Segmentation of Coronary Arteries from CT-scans of the heart using Deep Learning

Image segmentation is an important tool in several fields. One is medical image computing where the images are divided into regions based on tissue type and organ, which can further be used for visualization and diagnosis. Due to the large amount of data produced by modern imaging modalities such as CT and MRI, the process of manual or semi-automatic segmentation is time consuming, tedious and introduces bias by clinical experts. Recent advances in the field of deep learning has given rise to several fully automatic methods for robust segmentation on a large variety of segmentation tasks. In this thesis the use of a 3D convolutional neural network architecture is used on three different segmentation tasks is explored. These tasks are coronary artery segmentation, brain tumor segmentation and digital rock segmentation. Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death in Europe. Diagnosis of the disease is today done by invasive methods, but research on using computational fluid dynamics to model the blood flow based on non-invasive imaging show great promise. In this thesis a method for fully automatic segmentation of the coronary arteries based on deep learning is proposed, implemented and evaluated on a dataset provided by St. Olavs Hospital. The dataset contains manual segmentations performed by a clinical expert. The proposed method uses two neural networks trained on aorta segmentation and coronary segmentation respectively and is able to segment the complete coronary artery tree in some test images, but fails to segment all branches in the rest of the images. For the brain tumor segmentation task a network is trained and evaluated on a dataset provided by the Norwegian National Advisory Unit for Ultrasound and Image Guided Therapy (USIGT). The results show that the deep learning method is able to produce good segmentations fully automatically. These segmentations do however inlcude some spurious responses. Digital Rocks technology is based on using high resolution 3D microscopy imaging to create models describing reservoir rock. A network was trained and evaluated on a digital rock dataset provided by FEI. The results show that the network is able to produce good segmentations fully automatically.
NORMAL FORM REDUCTION FOR MULTIPLE-ZERO EIGENVALUE USING FRACTIONAL SCALES

In this paper, we present a new method for finding normal form equation and invariant manifold in the case of multiple zero eigenvalue with a single Jordan block. The method utilizes the concept of fractional scale. This allows using a single scale parameter in the normal form reduction for systems with multiple variables and parameters. The use of fractional scales substantially simplifies the procedure of system reduction. As an example, we perform the normal form reduction near the point of triple zero bifurcation for a double pendulum under a follower force.
Intra‐annual variation in the stable oxygen and carbon and trace element composition of sclerosponges

[1] This paper presents data to support the presence of (1) intra-annual signals in the chemical composition (δ18O and Sr/Ca) of the skeletons of sclerosponges from the Bahamas and (2) variable rates of skeletal accretion. These conclusions are based on data obtained by using a microsampling method for the stable oxygen and carbon isotopes in which material was extracted at a resolution of one sample every 34 μm and a laser microprobe which obtained trace element data every 20 μm (Sr, Mg, and Pb). An age model was established using a combination of changes in the concentration of Pb, the change in the δ13C of the skeleton of the sclerosponges, and U/Th isotopic measurements. These methods yield a mean growth rate of 220 μm/yr but suggest that the growth rate in this particular sclerosponge was not constant. The calculated growth rate is within error identical to that determined by U/Th methods. The variable growth rate was confirmed through spectral analysis of the δ18O and Sr/Ca data that showed peaks corresponding to the annual cycle in these parameters as well as peaks corresponding to growth rates of approximately 128, 212, 270, and 400 μm/yr. The presence of these additional frequencies suggests a growth rate between approximately 100 and 300 μm/yr. These conclusions were supported by modeling of oxygen isotopic data measured on a scleractinian coral as well as model isotope data generated on synthetic time series. These findings have important implications for the use of sclerosponges as proxies of paleoclimate because they emphasize the need for a precise yearly chronology in order that proxy data can be compared with climatic variables.
Unmet Need for Family Planning: Experience from Urban and Rural Areas in Bangladesh

One-fourth of pregnancies are either unwanted or mistimed in Bangladesh.Unwanted births not only pose risk to child health and wellbeing but also force to rapid population growth in resource strapped countries. The objectives of this study are to examine the extent of unmet need for contraception in Bangladesh and to explore the differentials in unmet need by some selected characteristics of the reproductive aged women in rural-urban Bangladesh. This study utilizes BDHS 2004 data. Chi square test and logistic regression analysis are used here. The total unmet need for family planning among currently married women in Bangladesh is found to be 12%. Unmet need to space births in rural area is higher than in urban area. The significant predictors of unmet need for spacing and limiting births are found to be ever using family planning, discussing family planning matters with spouses, number of living children, intention to have last child, age and education in the rural area whereas, age, intention of having last child, ever use of any contraception and discussing family planning matters with spouses in urban area. Rural women especially young married women deserve special consideration because unmet need to space birth is highest among them.
HABITAT USE BY WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS (MELANITTA FUSCA) AND SURF SCOTERS (MELANITTA PERSPICILLATA) IN THE MACKENZIE DELTA REGION, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. IV DEDICATION. VI TABLE OF CONTENTS.VII TABLE OF CONTENTS.VII LIST OF TABLES . X LIST OF TABLES . X LIST OF FIGURES . XII CHAPTER 1: GENERAL INTRODUCTION . 1 1.
A construction of quasiconvex functions with linear growth at infinity

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Simultaneous selection of optimal bandwidths for the sharp regression discontinuity estimator

A new bandwidth selection rule that uses different bandwidths for the local linear regression estimators on the left and the right of the cut-off point is proposed for the sharp regression discontinuity estimator of the mean program impact at the cut-off point. The asymptotic mean squared error of the estimator using the proposed bandwidth selection rule is shown to be smaller than other bandwidth selection rules proposed in the literature. An extensive simulation study shows that the proposed method's performances for the samples sizes 500, 2000, and 5000 closely match the theoretical predictions. Supplementary material for this paper is available here.
Reliability and Validity Studies of the Science and Technology Course Scientific Attitude Scale

Science is a basic course that improves the individuals in terms of cognitive aspects and increases their creativity. In this course, students acquire the habits of thinking objectively and making right decisions about the phenomena and events by examining their environment with scientific methods. In this process, an effort is spent to make students gain scientific knowledge, cognitive process skills and scientific attitudes. Scientific attitudes have an important role in developing scientific literacy. The purpose of this study is to bring up the results of reliability and validity studies of an instrument which is developed for determining scientific attitudes of fifth grade students. The data were collected from 887 students of randomly selected 14 elementary schools in the city of Eskisehir. As a result of factor analysis, the scale grouped in with three factors accounted for 42,08% of total variance with 28 items.
Distance Education: Graduate Student Attitudes and Academic Performance.

How distance education affects academic performance and student attitudes was studied for graduate students in an off-campus location taking a course required for their majors. The performance and attitudes of the distance (off-campus/remote) class of 16 students were compared with those of a control group of 12 students in a similar class and 25 students in the on-campus class hosting the distance class. Final grade scores were significantly lower for the host distance class than for the control class taught conventionally, but scores for the remote distance class were between the other two classes. Three of the 16 members of the remote class stated a negative opinion about the technology, and 8 of the 25 in the host class reported negative feelings about the course. The technology was very distracting to students in the beginning of the course. However, by the end of the course, most students were receptive to distance education 4s part of the future of instructional delivery, but they still favored the conventional way of teaching. Achievement data are not very conclusive, but the lower grades of the host distance class may reflect their more negative attitudes. (Contains 12 references.) (SLD) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************
Dietary protein to support active aging

Aging is associated with muscle mass and strength loss. This thesis found that resistance-type exercise increases muscle protein synthesis rates, leading to an increase in muscle mass and strength over time. Dietary protein intake further increases post-exercise muscle protein synthesis rates and older individuals require 30-45 g to achieve a near-maximal response. In the case that an older individual cannot ingest such large amounts of protein, the thesis found that free leucine co-ingested with 15 g protein also stimulates post-exercise muscle protein synthesis. Lastly, exercise combined with pre-sleep protein ingestion further increases muscle protein synthesis rates during overnight sleep.
A preliminary examination of the cost savings and learning impacts of using open textbooks in middle and high school science classes

Proponents of open educational resources claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the classroom. Over a period of two years, we worked with 20 middle and high school science teachers (collectively teaching approximately 3,900 students) who adopted open textbooks to understand the process and determine the overall cost of such an adoption. The teachers deployed open textbooks in multiple ways. Some of these methods cost more than traditional textbooks; however, we did identify and implement a successful model of open textbook adoption that reduces costs by over 50% compared to the cost of adopting traditional textbooks. In addition, we examined the standardized test scores of students using the open textbooks and found no apparent differences in the results of students who used open textbooks compared with previous years when the same teachers’ students used traditional textbooks. However, given the limited sample of participating teachers, further investigation is needed.