Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of annealing and prior history on enthalpy relaxation in glassy polymers. 4. Comparison of five polymers

Parameters for enthalpy relaxation in and below the glass transition temperature range were determined for poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc), poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and bisphenol A polycarbonate (PCarb) and compared with those previously obtained for another PVAc, two polystyrenes (PS), poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), the inorganic glasses As 2Se3 and B203 , and the simple organic glass 5-phenyl 2-ether. The four-parameter treatment of Moynihan and co-workers was found to give an adequate description of the relaxation component of the heat capacity, as a function of cooling rate, annealing temperature, and annealing time, for PVAc and PCarb. Significant deviations were found for PMMA. Strong correlations were observed between all four parameters for the five polymers, which were interpreted in terms of a cooperative relaxation mechanism.
Large Proper Motions in the Jet of the High-Mass YSO Cepheus A HW2

Using high angular resolution (~0.″25-0.″05) Very Large Array (VLA) observations made at 3.6 cm, 1.3 cm, and 7 mm during the period 1991-2004, we report the detection of large proper motions in the components of the radio continuum jet associated with the high-mass young stellar object (YSO) HW2 in the star-forming region Cepheus A. The relative proper motions observed for the two main components of the outflow, moving away from the central source in nearly opposite directions, are of the order of 140 mas yr-1, or ~480 km s-1 at a distance of 725 pc. The proper motions observed in the northeast and southwest lobes are not completely antiparallel, and the central elongated source seems to be changing orientation. We discuss possible scenarios to account for these and other observed characteristics. We also report the detection of a 7 mm compact continuum condensation of emission near the center of the thermal radio continuum jet, which we propose as the location of the exciting star.
Regulation of voluntary feed intake in juvenile rainbow trout fed by hand or by self-feeders with diets containing two different protein/energy ratios

The effect of increasing non-protein energy level in a 40% protein diet on the voluntary feed intake (VFI) was investigated in juvenile rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ). Fish were fed to satiety using two different methods, hand feeding or time restricted self-feeding. Regardless of the feeding methods, the VFI ind the feed: gain ratio was always significantly higher for the fish fed the low energy diet than for those fed the high energy diet. In addition, no effect of the diet on the specific growth rate could be detected. It is concluded that fish were able to regulate with a great accuracy their feed intake when fed either by hand or by self-feeders. This regulation was precise enough to satisfy their energy needs and led fish fed the two different experimental diets to reach identical growth performance, regardless of the feeding technique.
Stakeholder Corporate Governance: The Combined Effects of Bank Competition and Employment Protection

Between the early-1970s and the mid-1990s, the U.S. banking sector was deregulated and U.S. workers gained more statuary basic protections. The effects of these two reforms on productive activity have largely been studied separately in the finance and labor literatures. Yet they only have separable impacts under classical production theories, abstracting from frictions and the roles of various stakeholders in corporate governance (e.g., related to bargaining between workers, creditors, and shareholders). Jointly estimating effects, we confirm that bank branch deregulation benefits industries highly dependent on external finance. Employment protection promotes knowledge-intensive industries, consistent with labor search theories with firm-specific investment, but not with neo-classical theories and many empirical studies. Importantly, we find interactions between the two reforms to matter for real economic activity, suggesting stakeholder corporate governance to be important.
Interpretable Convolutional Filters with SincNet

Deep learning is currently playing a crucial role toward higher levels of artificial intelligence. This paradigm allows neural networks to learn complex and abstract representations, that are progressively obtained by combining simpler ones. Nevertheless, the internal "black-box" representations automatically discovered by current neural architectures often suffer from a lack of interpretability, making of primary interest the study of explainable machine learning techniques. This paper summarizes our recent efforts to develop a more interpretable neural model for directly processing speech from the raw waveform. In particular, we propose SincNet, a novel Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) that encourages the first layer to discover more meaningful filters by exploiting parametrized sinc functions. In contrast to standard CNNs, which learn all the elements of each filter, only low and high cutoff frequencies of band-pass filters are directly learned from data. This inductive bias offers a very compact way to derive a customized filter-bank front-end, that only depends on some parameters with a clear physical meaning. Our experiments, conducted on both speaker and speech recognition, show that the proposed architecture converges faster, performs better, and is more interpretable than standard CNNs.
Differential growth of larval sprat Sprattus sprattus across a tidal front in the eastern North sea

Spatial variations in abundance and growth of larval sprat Sprattus sprattus L. were examined across a tidal front in the eastern North Sea, off the west coast of Denmark. The aim of the study was to evaluate the potential advantage for sprat larvae of residing in the vicinity of a tidal front. The hydrographic front in the area followed the 20 to 30 m depth contour and separated a mixed water regime to the east and a stratified regime to the west. Primary production and phytoplankton abundance were lughest in the mixed water (>2000 mg C m-2 d ' and 150 mg chlorophyll m-2 respectively) and declined offshore towards stratified water. Zooplankton biomass peaked in the central parts of the investigated area in the vicinity of the front (up to 4 3 mg dry weight m-3). Peak densities of sprat larvae (>2 m-') were found in the front, in a water column stabhty range from 5 to 30 J m-3. The length distributions of larval sprat were dominated by modes of 12 and 16 mm, and growth rates of these 2 size classes were estimated from a Laird-Gompertz curve of larval size at age. Size at age of larvae was estimated by analysis of sagittal otoliths. Growth rate estimates were h~ghes t in the mixed water (absolute growth of 12 mm larva: 0.47 mm d' ; weight-specific growth: 0.16 d l ) . At the mixed side of the front, where larval abundance peaked, growth was slightly lower, whereas growth rate declined significantly further offshore (to a minimum for 16 mm larva of 0.13 mm d-l, weight-specific growth: 0.03 dl ) . Growth rate of larvae was positively related to chlorophyll content of water (when < 110 mg m-2) and to the available prey biomass. In conclusion, both abundance and growth of larvae were connected to characteristics of the tidal front.
Non-Markovian quantum interference in multilevel quantum systems: exact master equation approach

We study the non-Markovian dynamics of multilevel quantum systems coupled with a bosonic dissipative environment. Based on the known exact quantum-state diffusion (QSD) equations, we propose a systematic approach to derive exact time-convolutionless master equations for multilevel quantum systems. Through a combination of analytical and numerical approaches, we extract the non-Markovian dynamics of quantum interference in different time scales. Also, we demonstrate the evolution of quantum interference in a four-level system controlled by an external electromagnetic field. Our findings are extended to few-body quantum networks, with a universal formalism established.
DE-BIASED POPULATIONS OF KUIPER BELT OBJECTS FROM THE DEEP ECLIPTIC SURVEY

The Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES) was a survey project that discovered hundreds of Kuiper Belt objects from 1998 to 2005. Extensive follow-up observations of these bodies has yielded 304 objects with well-determined orbits and dynamical classifications into one of several categories: Classical, Scattered, Centaur, or 16 mean-motion resonances with Neptune. The DES search fields are well documented, enabling us to calculate the probability on each frame of detecting an object with its particular orbital parameters and absolute magnitude at a randomized point in its orbit. The detection probabilities range from a maximum of 0.32 for the 3:2 resonant object 2002 GF32 to a minimum of 1.5 × 10−7 for the faint Scattered object 2001 FU185. By grouping individual objects together by dynamical classes, we can estimate the distributions of four parameters that define each class: semimajor axis, eccentricity, inclination, and object size. The orbital element distributions (a, e, and i) were fit to the largest three classes (Classical, 3:2, and Scattered) using a maximum likelihood fit. Using the absolute magnitude (H magnitude) as a proxy for the object size, we fit a power law to the number of objects versus H magnitude for eight classes with at least five detected members (246 objects). The Classical objects are best fit with a power-law slope of α = 1.02 ± 0.01 (observed from 5 ⩽ H ⩽ 7.2). Six other dynamical classes (Scattered plus five resonances) have consistent magnitude distribution slopes with the Classicals, provided that the absolute number of objects is scaled. Scattered objects are somewhat more numerous than Classical objects, while there are only a quarter as many 3:2 objects as Classicals. The exception to the power law relation is the Centaurs, which are non-resonant objects with perihelia closer than Neptune and therefore brighter and detectable at smaller sizes. Centaurs were observed from 7.5 < H < 11, and that population is best fit by a power law with α = 0.42 ± 0.02. This is consistent with a knee in the H-distribution around H = 7.2 as reported elsewhere. Based on the Classical-derived magnitude distribution, the total number of objects (H ⩽ 7) in each class is: Classical (2100 ± 300 objects), Scattered (2800 ± 400), 3:2 (570 ± 80), 2:1 (400 ± 50), 5:2 (270 ± 40), 7:4 (69 ± 9), 5:3 (60 ± 8). The independent estimate for the number of Centaurs in the same H range is 13 ± 5. If instead all objects are divided by inclination into “Hot” and “Cold” populations, following Fraser et al., we find that αHot = 0.90 ± 0.02, while αCold = 1.32 ± 0.02, in good agreement with that work.
Reduce Uncollapsed Gibbs Sampling for Bayesian Non Parametric Models

We propose a Map/Reduce parallel Gibbs sampling framework for Bayesian nonparametric (BNP) models. Our proposal relies on the idea of sampling all the hidden variables in order to break their dependencies, as it has been proposed in the related literature. We present it in a way that is easily generalizable and readily applicable for any BNP model with a likelihood function in the exponential family. We release our code in Spark/Scala for the Dirichlet and Beta processes, which allows us to run one iteration over 50M observations in less than two minutes.
Antibiotic Sensitivity Pattern of Bacterial Isolates from Different Clinical Specimens: Experience at NICVD, Dhaka

Background: Infectious diseases are among the leading causes of death and sometimes curable. Bacteria are the most common etiology in hospitalized patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the incidence of bacterial infections and their pattern of susceptibility to antibiotics in moderate and severe infections in patients admitted at NICVD hospital. Methodology: The study was performed in the apical teaching hospital of Bangladesh situated at Dhaka in the first half of 2012. Patients admitted in medical wards and medical ICU, suffering from moderate and severe infections were studied. Clinical evaluation, routine and specific investigations were done in each case. Microbiological samplings were tried on day 1, after completion of antibiotic therapy or in between as required. Aerobic bacterial culture and sensitivity tests were done. Result: A total of 274 cases were studied of which male (67.5%) were predominant than female (32.5%). The highest number of patients were in the age group of 30-60 years (53.6%) followed by 10- 30 years (24.5%) and more than 60 years (12.8%). The mean age with standard deviation was 39.15±19.07 years (range 1-90 years). Most common isolated bacteria was the Pseudomonas species (14.2%) followed by Escherichia coli (13.5%), Staphylococcus saprophyticus (6.9%) and Staphylococcus aureus (2.2%). From these specimens Pseudomonas species (31.5%) was isolated mostly from pus. E. coli was found most commonly in pus (16.3%) and urine (14.1%). Staph saprophyticus (13.0%) and Staphylococcus aureus (4.3%) were both found most commonly in pus. Pseudomonas species was 100% resistant to Penicillin, Amoxycillin and Vancomycin. It was found that Pseudomonas species was still more than 90% sensitive only to Imipenem. Escherichia coli was more than 80% sensitive to only Imipenem and Amikacin. Staphylococcus aureus was sensitive to only Imipenem and Cephalexin. Conclusion: In this study Pseudomonas species and Escherichia coli are the most common isolated bacteria in this Institution. Most of the antibiotics are resistant to these two bacteria. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.3329/cardio.v5i1. 12276 Cardiovasc. j. 2012; 5(1): 67-72
The Perpetual American Put Option for Jump-Diffusions with Applications

We solve a specific optimal stopping problem with an infinite time horizon, when the state variable follows a jump-diffusion. The novelty of the paper is related to the inclusion of a jump component in this stochastic process. Under certain conditions, our solution can be interpreted as the price of an American perpetual put option. We characterize the continuation region when the underlying asset follows this type of stochastic process. Our basic solution is exact only when jump sizes cannot be negative. A methodology to deal with negative jump sizes is also demonstrated.
Parallelizable Algorithms for Optimization Problems with Orthogonality Constraints

To construct a parallel approach for solving optimization problems with orthogonality constraints is usually regarded as an extremely difficult mission, due to the low scalability of the orthonormalization procedure. However, such demand is particularly huge in some application areas such as materials computation. In this paper, we propose a proximal linearized augmented Lagrangian algorithm (PLAM) for solving optimization problems with orthogonality constraints. Unlike the classical augmented Lagrangian methods, in our algorithm, the prime variables are updated by minimizing a proximal linearized approximation of the augmented Lagrangian function, meanwhile the dual variables are updated by a closed-form expression which holds at any first-order stationary point. The orthonormalization procedure is only invoked once at the last step of the above mentioned algorithm if high-precision feasibility is needed. Consequently, the main parts of the proposed algorithm can be parallelized naturally. We establish global subsequence convergence, worst-case complexity and local convergence rate for PLAM under some mild assumptions. To reduce the sensitivity of the penalty parameter, we put forward a modification of PLAM, which is called parallelizable column-wise block minimization of PLAM (PCAL). Numerical experiments in serial illustrate that the novel updating rule for the Lagrangian multipliers significantly accelerates the convergence of PLAM and makes it comparable with the existent feasible solvers for optimization problems with orthogonality constraints, and the performance of PCAL does not highly rely on the choice of the penalty parameter. Numerical experiments under parallel environment demonstrate that PCAL attains good performance and high scalability in solving discretized Kohn-Sham total energy minimization problems.
Social Structure and Abundance of Coastal Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, in the Normano-Breton Gulf, English Channel

A large, but poorly studied, bottlenose dolphin community, Tursiops truncatus, inhabits coastal waters of Normandy (Normano-Breton Gulf, English Channel, France). In this study, the social structure and abundance of this community were assessed using photo-identification techniques. Like other bottlenose dolphin communities worldwide, this resident community has a fission—fusion social structure with fluid associations among individuals (half-weight index = 0.10). Association patterns were highly variable as indicated by a high social differentiation (S = 0.95 ±0.03). The majority of associations were casual, lasting days to months. However, individuals exhibited also a smaller proportion of long-term relationships. A mean group size of 26 was large compared with other resident coastal communities, and variable, ranging from 1 to 100, which could be the results of ecological conditions, in particular resource predictability and availability. Analyses also showed that the community was organized in 3 social clusters that were not completely isolated from each other. Abundance was estimated at 420 dolphins (95% confidence interval: 331–521), making this coastal community one of the largest identified along European coastlines. Because human activities in the Gulf are expected to increase in the upcoming years, long-term demographic monitoring of this dolphin community will be critical for its management.
Palynology as a Tool to Distinguish between Propolis and Geopropolis: Southern Brazilian Samples

Propolis is a product elaborated by honey bees (Apis) and comprises plant resins, bee wax, glandular secretions of the worker bees and pollen grains. Geopropolis is a product elaborated by stingless bees and comprises similar compounds of honey bees and soil, mud, clay, earth or sand. The present study intends to distinguish between propolis and geopropolis using pollen analysis. A total of 12 samples were obtained in the Southern Brazilian macro-region and processed by standard melissopalynological methodology. All structural components recovered after alcoholic extraction and before acetolysis treatment were evaluated. Four of the eight samples collected in the State of Parana were prepared by Apis and showed a strong contribution of Asteraceae and Eucalyptus pollen grains. On the other hand, the two geopropolis samples of Tetragonisca angustula contained mainly Cecropia pollen grains, while the samples of Melipona quadrifasciata and Melipona mondury showed a predominance of Melastomataceae pollen grains. The four propolis samples obtained in the Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul States were characterized by a predominant pollen contribution of Asteraceae and Eucalyptus. Additional structured elements in propolis samples comprised frequently plant trichomes and tissue fragments. On the contrary, the geopropolis samples showed high values of spores of fungi, amorphous organic matter, sand or clay and sometimes remainder of resin. In conclusion, the pollen grain spectra do not distinguish between propolis of Apis and geopropolis of stingless bees, but the accessory elements are conclusive.
The effects of mindfulness versus thought suppression on implicit and explicit measures of experiential avoidance.

The current study aimed to provide an implicit measure of experiential avoidance (EA). Fifty undergraduate participants were exposed to an implicit (Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure: IRAP) and an explicit (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire II: AAQ II) measure of EA. Subsequently participant’s response latencies on viewing a negatively affective IAP image were recorded. Participants were randomly assigned to either a thought suppression, or mindfulness group. The induction for both groups involved a 10 minute audio file that operationalized either suppression or mindfulness as a useful coping strategy for unwanted thoughts about the negatively affective IAP image. In the last stage of the experiment participants were re-exposed to both the AAQ II and the IRAP in order to determine whether the respective inductions had impacted on participant’s level of EA (either explicitly or implicitly). The results indicated that the mindfulness group experienced a reduction of EA from pre to postinduction in comparison to those in the thought suppression group on the implicit measure (IRAP) but not the explicit measure (AAQ II). Results are discussed in terms of the utility of an implicit measure of experiential avoidance.
Labeling and Detection of Marrow Derived Mesenchymal Stromal Cells using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Labeling and Detection of Marrow Derived Mesenchymal Stromal Cells using Magnetic Resonance Imaging Emidio Tarulli Master of Health Science Graduate Department of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering University of Toronto 2008 Stem cell therapies hold great promise for diseases such as stroke, where few effective treatment options exist. Clinical translation of experimental stem cell therapies requires the ability to monitor delivery and behaviour of cells non-invasively in-vivo with clinical imaging modalities such as MRI. This thesis presents the translation of established methods for labelling and imaging stem cells with specialized MRI systems to a more clinically relevant setting. A methodology for harvesting and labelling a cell population containing stem cells with iron oxide for detection with a clinical MRI system is presented and single cell detection is demonstrated in-vitro. The feasibility of detecting iron oxide labelled stem cells intravenously delivered in a rat model of stroke is tested. Results demonstrate that while MRI is highly sensitive to the presence and distribution of iron oxide containing cells in-vivo the true origin of these cells remains ambiguous with the current methodology.
Migration and regional convergence: An empirical investigation for Turkey

The standard growth model predicts that allowing labour mobility across regions would increase the speed of convergence in per capita income levels and that migration has a negative causal impact on regional growth rates. Although the empirical literature has uncovered some evidence for the former implication, the latter has not been verified empirically. This paper provides empirical evidence for the negative causal impact of migration on provincial growth rates in a developing country with a high level of internal migration characterized by unskilled labour exiting rural areas for urban centres. We utilize an instrumental variables estimation method with an instrument unique to the country examined, controlling for provincial fixed effects. Copyright (c) 2008 the author(s). Journal compilation (c) 2008 RSAI.
Convectively Coupled Waves Propagating along an Equatorial ITCZ

Abstract The dynamics of convectively coupled gravity waves traveling over a precipitating region are analyzed in an idealized model for the large-scale atmospheric circulation. The model is composed of a shallow water system coupled to an advection equation for moisture through the convection term, utilizing a quasi-equilibrium relaxation to moisture closure. Here the authors investigate the model in the strict quasi-equilibrium (SQE) of infinitely short relaxation time. This framework is applied to study the behavior of a disturbance propagating along a narrow precipitation band, similar to the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). For an ITCZ width on the order of the equatorial Rossby radius, Kelvin waves propagate at the moist gravity wave speed (about 15 m s−1), whereas for a narrow ITCZ, the propagation speed is comparable to the dry gravity wave (about 50 m s−1). It is also shown that a Kelvin wave propagating along a narrow precipitation region exhibits a meridional circulation that modulates th.