Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Running head : BE MORE Be More : Buffering Against Gender Stereotypes by Building Self-Efficacy Beliefs

Research shows that organizations perform better when women are represented on senior leadership teams. Yet women are not rising to the highest ranks of leadership at equivalent rates as men. Gender stereotypes negatively influence women’s self-efficacy, the internal beliefs of what they are capable of. Women hold themselves back when they respond to these low self-efficacy beliefs, by not aspiring, not applying, not asking, and not acting. This paper explores current leadership gap data and the consequences of the disparity between men and women in leadership roles. Next, the paper describes how stereotypes can create the underlying problem: limiting internal beliefs. This paper proposes an evidence-based solution drawn from the field of positive psychology. A review of decades of research suggests that with increased career self-efficacy, women will be more likely to reach for, persist in, and succeed in senior leadership positions. The paper’s appendices describe four practical interventions that can be implemented by women and organizations designed to raise women’s career self-efficacy.
Rollover Risk and Credit Spreads: Evidence from International Corporate Bonds

Using a new dataset on corporate bonds placed in international markets by emerging and developed borrowers, this article demonstrates that a high proportion of short-term debt exacerbates the effect of debt market illiquidity on corporate bond spreads. This effect is present during both periods of financial stability and of financial distress, and it is smaller in the banking sector than in other sectors. The article’s major finding is robust when controlling for potential endogeneity. Moreover, the results are consistent with the predictions of structural credit risk models that argue that a higher proportion of short-term debt increases a firm’s exposure to debt market illiquidity through a "rollover risk" channel.
Face Anti-Spoofing Methods

In recent years, facial biometric systems have received increased deployment in various applications such as surveillance, access control and forensic investigations. However, one of the limitations of face recognition system is the high possibility of the system being deceived or spoofed by non-real faces such as photograph, video clips or dummy faces. In order to identify the spoofing attacks on such biometric systems, face liveness detection approaches have been developed. Thus, the current approach is to integrate liveness detection within facial biometrics by using life sign indicators of individual features. This article presents a review of state-of-the-art techniques in face liveness detection, which are classified into two groups, namely intrusive and non-intrusive approaches. Here, each technique is discussed in terms of its implementation, strengths and limitations, as well as indications on possible future research directions that can be studied.
A Comparison of Three Methods to Calculate the Surface Impedance and Absorption Coefficient from Measurements Under Free Field or in situ Conditions

Eric Brandão1), Emiel Tijs2), Arcanjo Lenzi3), Hans-Elias de Bree2) 1) Engenharia Acústica. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Departamento de Estruturas e Construção Civil, Av. Roraima, 1000, Cidade Universitária, Santa Maria, RS, 97105-900, Brasil. ericbacustica@gmail.com 2) Microflown Technologies, PO BOX 2205, 6802 CE Arnhem, The Netherlands. tijs@microflown.com, debree@microflown.com 3) Laboratório de Vibrações e Acústica, Departmento de Engenharia Mecânica, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Campus Trindade, Florianópolis, SC, 88040-900, Brasil. arcanjo@lva.ufsc. br
2.5D resistivity modeling of embankment dams to assess influence from geometry and material properties

Repeated resistivity measurement is a potentially powerful method for monitoring development of internal erosion and anomalous seepage in earth embankment dams. This study is part of a project to improve current longterm monitoring routines and data interpretation and increasing the understanding when interpreting existing data. This is accomplished by modeling various occurrences typical of embankment structures using properties from two rockfill embankment dams with central till cores in the north of Sweden. The study evaluates the influence from 3D effects created by specific dam geometry and effects of water level fluctuations in the reservoir. Moreover, a comparison between different layout locations is carried out, and detectability of internal erosion scenarios is estimated through modeling of simulated damage situations. Software was especially developed to model apparent resistivity for geometries and material distributions for embankment dams. The model shows that the 3D effect from the embankment geometry is clearly significant when measuring along dam crests. For dams constructed with a conductive core of fine-grained soil and high-resistive rockfill, the effect becomes greatly enhanced. Also, water level fluctuations have a clear effect on apparent resistivities. Only small differences were found between the investigated arrays. A layout along the top of the crest is optimal for monitoring on existing dams, where intrusive investigations are normally avoided, because it is important to pass the current through the conductive core, which is often the main target of investigation. The investigation technique has proven beneficial for improving monitoring routines and increasing the understanding of results from the ongoing monitoring programs. Although the technique and software are developed for dam modeling, it could be used for estimation of 3D influence on any elongated structure with a 2D cross section.
Solutions of a quadratic Volterra–Stieltjes integral equation in the class of functions converging at infinity

The paper deals with the study of the existence of solutions of a quadratic integral equation of Volterra–Stieltjes type. We are looking for solutions in the class of real functions continuous and bounded on the real half-axis R+ and converging to proper limits at infinity. The quadratic integral equations considered in the paper contain, as special cases, a lot of nonlinear integral equations such as Volterra–Chandrasekhar or Volterra–Wiener–Hopf equations, for example. In our investigations we use the technique associated with measures of noncompactness and the Darbo fixed point theorem. Particularly, we utilize a measure of noncompactness related to the class of functions in which solutions of the integral equation in question are looking for.
An overview of steps and tools for the Corporate Real Estate strategy alignment process

Purpose – Strategic thinking is a continuous process, alternating between thinking, planning and evaluating. Corporate Real Estate Management (CREM) needs to align their strategy and activities to corporate strategy during this entire process that the organisation goes through. Along the way, many different issues need to be considered and tools used to help make the right decisions. This paper aims to provide an overview of the strategic thinking process, and identify important steps to take and possible tools to take them.Design/methodology/approach – First strategic thinking is discussed and where CREM should start alignment. Then CREM literature on activities of CRE managers and possible tools is assigned to the different steps of the alignment process. Last, an overview is created for CREM in practice to improve strategic thinking and alignment.Findings – CREM research has identified and created many tools for CREM practitioners to work towards alignment. However, an overview of how to proceed with alignment during the entire strategic thinking process was lacking. This paper contains a first attempt to make such an overview.Implications – This overview of steps and tools to reach alignment can be used by CREM practitioners to discuss alignment with general management. Hopefully, this helps with receiving more strategic attention and the promotion of CREM departments towards strategists in the CREM evolution.Originality value – Studies on alignment of CREM with corporate strategy tend to focus on one phase of the alignment (either initial alignment or performance management). This paper extends the alignment strategy from initial alignment towards implementation and evaluation, covering the whole process cycle. Also, it provides an overview of existing tools and methods to use.
What Firm Characteristics Drive US Stock Returns?

We employ a forecast combination approach to analyze the ability of 94 firm characteristics from Green, Hand, and Zhang (2017) to predict US stock returns. Using machine learning tools to pool forecasts, we find that most of the firm characteristics matter over time—and approximately 30 matter on average at each point in time—for forecasting value-weighted cross-sectional returns before and after 2003, a year when Green, Hand, and Zhang (2017) detect a major structural break. By processing the information in a plethora of predictors in a manner that alleviates overfitting, our combination approach provides economically significant out-of-sample forecasts of cross-sectional returns consistently over time. JEL classifications: G11, G14
Three dimensional characteristics of young–of–year pelagic fish schools in lake

Fish schools are aggregative structures encountered in all types of aquatic environments but have as yet been little studied in freshwaters except at small spatial scales. This study represents the three dimensional description of juvenile fish schools (Perca fluviatilis and Rutilus rutilus) in a lake environment using high resolution multibeam sonar system operating at a frequency of 455 kHz, composed of 60 beams of 1.5 degrees allowing a 90 degrees observation plane. The in situ diurnal schooling behaviour of young-of-the-year fish of both species is confirmed. The morphological, energetic and spatial variables of these schools are described and related to one another. The structures described are of the same order of magnitude as those described in the marine environment. The school shape is elliptical, they are shallow and they display a temporal and spatial stability over the Course of a day but a highly variable morphology. The number of vacuoles, a descriptor of the internal morphology of the schools, was found to be significantly (p 0.01) correlated with the volume of the school, and showed two distinct relationships, with proportions similar to the percentage occurrence of both species sampled by a pelagic trawl. The relation may be efficient for fish species discrimination by 3-D acoustics methods in this lake with two main aggregative fish species.
WHO EMRO | Raising awareness of health care providers about MERS-CoV infection in public hospitals in Mecca, Saudi Arabia

It is important that health care workers have good knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) towards MERS-CoV, especially in Mecca because of the MERS-CoV threat during hajj and umrah. This study aimed to assess KAP of health care providers in public hospitals in Mecca about MERS-CoV infection and evaluate the effectiveness of a health education intervention to improve KAP. KAP was assessed among 281 participants using a self-administered questionnaire who then underwent the health education intervention using a combination of methods. After 3 months, 188 participants responded to the post-intervention evaluation. Significant post-intervention improvement was found in the median scores for knowledge (P Accroître la sensibilisation des prestataires de soins concernant l’infection MERS-CoV dans les hôpitaux de la Mecque (Arabie saoudite) RÉSUMÉ Pour les agents de santé, il est important d’avoir de bonnes connaissances, attitudes et pratiques concernant l’infection du MERS-CoV, notamment à la Mecque en raison des
Effects of Dietary Threonine and a Multi Strains Probiotic (Primalac) Supplementation on Growth Performance, Blood Metabolites and Carcass Characteristics in Japanese Quails

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of three levels of threonine (100, 95 and 90% of NRC requirements) with or without of multi strains probiotic (Primalac) on performance, carcass characteristics and blood metabolites of Japanese quails. A total of 180 one-day-old male Japanese quails were randomly allocated to six treatments with three replicates and 10 birds per each. The experiment was done from 0 to 6 weeks of age. Growth performance traits including weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio were recorded. At the end of the experiment, six birds per treatment were slaughtered and carcass characteristics were measured. Blood sampling was taken at 42 days of age. The results of this study indicated that supplementation of probiotic did not affect feed intake, weight gain and feed conversion ratio in quails. In contrast, feed conversion ratio was improved in birds fed with 100% of threonine requirements. All carcass traits, except for liver weight, were not influenced by threonine levels and dietary probiotic supplementation. The liver percentage was higher in birds fed diets without the probiotic. The results showed that serum glucose was affected by threonine levels. However, the other blood metabolites such as cholesterol, triglyceride, high-density lipoproteins and low-density lipoproteins were not influenced by the threonine levels. In this regard, none of the blood metabolites were influenced by probiotic supplement, except for cholesterol. In conclusions, the supplementation of probiotic did not affect growth performance in Japanese quails. However, use of threonine at 100% NRC requirements improved feed efficiency in Japanese quails.
Bacterial Diversity and Biofilm Formation in Drinking Water Distribution System in Lebanon

*Corresponding author Microorganisms that grow in the environment may enter the drinking-water and attach to and grow on drinking-water pipes and other surfaces, forming biofilms as the most common means of growth in the environment. In the present study bacterial diversity and the prevalence of Shiga Toxin-producing E.coli (STX-EC) were detected in drinking water distribution system in Lebanon. Bacterial isolates belonging to the coliform and thermotolerant coliforms including E.coli were the most prevalent isolates. Different E. coli isolates (7 isolates) were then tested for the presence of stx1, stx2, eaeA, ehlyA, and fliC virulence genes. The seven E. coli isolates were considered as STX-EC serotypes, carrying virulence marker genes. However none of these isolates were positive for the fliC gene and thus are H7- negative, and could not be classified as O157:H7. Biofilm production was quantitatively investigated using the method of adherence to polystyrene microtiter plates. 32.26% of the isolates were detected as strong, 51.61% as moderate and 16.13% as weak biofilm producers. Pre-coating the microtiter plate with tap water showed a significant increase in biofilm production in all the isolates. K e y w o r d s Drinking water distribution system, STX-EC, coliforms, thermotolerant coliforms, biofilm
Amplitude-preserving reverse time migration: From reflectivity to velocity and impedance inversion

Conventional methods of prestack depth imaging aim at producing a structural image that delineates the interfaces of the geologic variations or the reflectivity of the earth. However, it is the underlying impedance and velocity changes that generate this reflectivity that are of more interest for characterizing the reservoir. Indeed, the need to generate a better product for geologic interpretation leads to the subsequent application of traditional seismic-inversion techniques to the reflectivity sections that come from typical depth-imaging processes. The drawback here is that these seismic-inversion techniques use additional information, e.g., from well logs or velocity models, to fill the low frequencies missing in traditional seismic data due to the free-surface ghost in marine acquisition. We found that with the help of broadband acquisition and processing techniques, the bandwidth gap between the depth-imaging world and seismic inversion world is reducing. We outlined a theory that shows how angle-domain common-image gathers produced by an amplitude-preserving reverse time migration can estimate impedance and velocity perturbations. The near-angle stacked image provides the impedance perturbation estimate whereas the far-angle image can be used to estimate the velocity perturbation. In the context of marine acquisition and exploration, our method can, together with a ghost compensation technique, be a useful tool for seismic inversion, and it is also adaptable to a full-waveform inversion framework. We developed synthetic and real data examples to test that the method is reliable and provides additional information for interpreting geologic structures and rock properties.
SURVIVORSHIP OF TRANSLOCATED KANGAROO RATS IN THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY , CALIFORNIA

Efforts to protect endangered species sometimes involve removing animals from sites to be developed and translocating them to protected sites. This method has rarely been successful. Protected kangaroo rats in the San Joaquin Valley of California continue to lose habitat to development. In 2001, I monitored four Tipton kangaroo rats( Dipodomys nitratoides nitratoides) and seven Heermann’s kangaroo rats (D. heermanni ssp.) fitted with radio transmitters that were translocated away from development at an electrical substation to protected native land of the San Joaquin Valley, Kern County, California. I released translocated kangaroo rats into individual artificial burrows that were spaced 10–15 m apart and that were provisioned with bird seed. Only 1 individual survived the 45 days of the study. All four Tipton kangaroo rats were dead within 5 days of release, and all appear to have been eaten by predators. Two Heermann’s kangaroo rats appeared to have been killed by conspecifics, three were killed by predators, and the fate of one was undetermined. If translocation is to be considered a useful conservation measure, kangaroo rats need to be released into habitat that is unoccupied, or nearly so, by conspecifics and the use of additional methods of protecting translocated individuals may be necessary.
CHRONIC ADMINISTRATION OF RED BULL AFFECTS BLOOD PARAMETERS IN RATS

Energy drinks are commercial drinks conceived in order to improve physical and intellectual performance. Short term effects of energy drinks are known and do not seem to affect the state of health, but long term effects are less known and raise serious health questions. In this work we investigated if Red Bull affects morphologic and some of the biochemical parameters of the blood. Twenty adult Wistar rats, weighing 186.6±3.15 g were organized into two groups. The Control (C) group received a standard diet and tap water. The animals in the energy drink (ED) group were orally administrated 1.5 ml/100 g b.wt. of Red Bull daily, for 4 weeks. After 4 weeks of treatment, the rats were killed by exsanguination and blood samples were collected for morphologic and biochemical parameter analysis. A significant reduction in red blood cell count was noticed in the ED group, while the hemoglobin concentration and the hematocrit slightly increased in the experimental group, as compared to the control. The concentrations of glucose and total cholesterol increased significantly after Red Bull administration, as did the activities of serum LDH, AST and ALT. These results indicate that a long-term consumption of energy drinks can affect certain morphological and biochemical blood parameters. Furthermore, these drinks may be risk factors for the development of a metabolic disease.
DEEPSEC: A Uniform Platform for Security Analysis of Deep Learning Model

Deep learning (DL) models are inherently vulnerable to adversarial examples – maliciously crafted inputs to trigger target DL models to misbehave – which significantly hinders the application of DL in security-sensitive domains. Intensive research on adversarial learning has led to an arms race between adversaries and defenders. Such plethora of emerging attacks and defenses raise many questions: Which attacks are more evasive, preprocessing-proof, or transferable? Which defenses are more effective, utility-preserving, or general? Are ensembles of multiple defenses more robust than individuals? Yet, due to the lack of platforms for comprehensive evaluation on adversarial attacks and defenses, these critical questions remain largely unsolved. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of DEEPSEC, a uniform platform that aims to bridge this gap. In its current implementation, DEEPSEC incorporates 16 state-of-the-art attacks with 10 attack utility metrics, and 13 state-of-the-art defenses with 5 defensive utility metrics. To our best knowledge, DEEPSEC is the first platform that enables researchers and practitioners to (i) measure the vulnerability of DL models, (ii) evaluate the effectiveness of various attacks/defenses, and (iii) conduct comparative studies on attacks/defenses in a comprehensive and informative manner. Leveraging DEEPSEC, we systematically evaluate the existing adversarial attack and defense methods, and draw a set of key findings, which demonstrate DEEPSEC’s rich functionality, such as (1) the trade-off between misclassification and imperceptibility is empirically confirmed; (2) most defenses that claim to be universally applicable can only defend against limited types of attacks under restricted settings; (3) it is not necessary that adversarial examples with higher perturbation magnitude are easier to be detected; (4) the ensemble of multiple defenses cannot improve the overall defense capability, but can improve the lower bound of the defense effectiveness of individuals. Extensive analysis on DEEPSEC demonstrates its capabilities and advantages as a benchmark platform which can benefit future adversarial learning research.
Do grazing intensity and herbivore type affect soil health? Insights from a semi‐arid productivity gradient

Summary Grazing is one of the most widespread forms of intensive management on Earth and is linked to reductions in soil health. However, little is known about the relative influence of herbivore type, herbivore intensity and site productivity on soil health. This lack of knowledge reduces our capacity to manage landscapes where grazing is a major land use. We used structural equation modelling to assess the effects of recent (cattle, sheep, goats, kangaroos and rabbit dung) and historic (cattle, sheep/goat livestock tracks) herbivore activity on soil health at 451 sites across 0·5 M km2 of eastern Australia. We assessed the direct and indirect effects of increasing herbivore intensity, using dung and livestock tracks, on 15 morphological, physical and chemical attributes that are indicative of soil health, and we used these attributes to derive three indices representing the capacity of the soil to maintain its structural integrity (stability), cycle nutrients (nutrients) and maintain water flow (infiltration). Grazing had negative effects on the three soil health indices, but these effects varied with productivity. Grazing intensity was associated with strong reductions in the stability and nutrient indices under low productivity, but these effects diminished with increasing productivity. Herbivore effects on individual attributes varied in relation to productivity level and were strongly herbivore specific, with most due to cattle grazing, and to a lesser extent, sheep, goats and rabbits. Few effects due to kangaroos or historic grazing by livestock were observed. Synthesis and applications. Our study shows that livestock and rabbits degrade soil health through grazing, and its effects are strongest under low or moderate productivity; however, kangaroo effects are benign. Our findings support calls for resource management agencies to consider site productivity, as well as herbivore type and intensity, when developing strategies to manage grazing by livestock, and feral and native herbivores.