Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electrophysiological Recording of the Brain, Visualization, Prediction, and Interconnectivity

Electrophysiological recording of the brain, visualization, prediction, and interconnectivity Omid Talakoub Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Toronto 2014 The human brain is a complex network of interconnected neurons. The aim of neuroscience and neuroengineering is to decode the neural activity, visualize it and try to better understand how neurons communicate with each other. This dissertation comprises four contributions to the area. These four topics are discussing how functional relationship between brain activity and movement can be found and whether common features found in different regions are correlated (phase-locked). First, the method of chirplet decomposition offers a new way to visualize the time-frequency content of non-stationary signals with higher resolution than previously possible. The use of Wigner-Ville distribution together with chirplet decomposition allows a clearer visualization in terms of both the temporal and frequency details with detail higher than previously achieved using other methods including Choi-Williams and spectrogram. Second, an improved method of averaging of neural signals over repeated trials is introduced whereby slight variations in the alignment of the neural signal over time is corrected through the use of nonlinear shifts. In earlier studies, time alignment has been performed using linear shift (e.g. alignment with movement onset), but this process alone is not sufficient when the signal timing changes differently over time. To overcome this issue, nonlinear transformations were found to remove any temporal variabilities in the way the task was performed. Third, a multilinear model is demonstrated showing how limb velocity in a reach task can be
News diffusion of a significant event: how Malaysians and Indonesians learnt of the Indonesia Airasia QZ8501 tragedy

This paper examines how a significant event is diffused in two different countries. Using the News Diffusion as a theoretical perspective, the study initially focused on the role of media in influencing the spreading of information during an enfolding aviation disaster. Taking the 2014 Indonesia AirAsia QZ8501 crash as a significant event, the research addressed the questions: How do two different nationalities learn of a significant event? How does media usage during a crisis influence the speed of news dissemination about the event? How was the spread of information on a significant event in two different nationalities was treated in different media systems? A total of 1,199 Malaysian respondents were interviewed from 5 to 14 January 2015 and another 604 respondents from 15 January to 10 February 2015 in Indonesia through the use of questionnaires. The total number of respondents in Indonesia was confided to Jambi and Jakarta because of the pressure of time needed to complete the questionnaire. The interviews took place in Jambi and Jakarta, Indonesia and nationwide for Malaysia. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) WIN 20. Most of the respondents in Malaysia heard the news at around 01:00-01:59 p.m. (Malaysia Time) while Indonesia respondents mostly heard for the first time about the crash at 9:00- 09:59 p.m. Western Indonesia standard time (WIB) with television being the first source of news followed by Facebook as the second most common sources in spreading the news. The regularity hypothesis on the diffusion of news argues that news of a significant event is expanded more through interpersonal communication compared to mass media. This study found that the spread of news was slow, despite the event being significant. Several key themes surfaced to shed some light on the role of media in disseminating the news, the pattern of news transmission and the social-behavioural conduct in the two countries.
Why Did the Equity Home Bias Fall During the Financial Panic of 2008

Theories of home bias and of portfolio choice under uncertainty both predict that the home bias should increase during a financial crisis. In contrast to these theories, using a sample of 45 countries, I document that the equity home bias fell during the financial panic of 2008. Disentangling the active and passive components of portfolio holdings, I find that investors actively increased their home bias, but passive valuation changes subsumed these trades and reduced the home bias. Across countries, portfolio rebalancing, increased information asymmetries, and familiarity bias played distinct roles in investors’ international portfolio reallocations during the crisis.
Zingiber officinale: a natural gold

Ginger, (Zingiber officinale Roscoe, Zingiberacae) is one of the important medicinal plant which naturally occurs in various country like India, China, South East Asia, West Indies, Mexico and other parts of the world. This natural gold has been consumed worldwide as a spice and flavoring agent from the ancient time. Ginger plants are generally 1-3 ft. in height and having different chemical constituents like Amaldehyde, Gingerol, Shogaol, and Paradol etc. It has some tremendous beneficial effect to human body to cure various types of diseases. Ginger bears an enormous number of pharmacological activities among those, Neuro-protective activity and activity against colon cancer have facilitated the extent of further research for finding out less toxic and more potent drugs for the better treatment of those diseases. This review will facilitate to gain all about the past scientific research and the necessary information about the enormous pharmacological activities of ginger which will insist researchers for future research to protect human beings from several types of diseases and may serves as a natural gold for the promotion of mankind.
Text segmentation by language

La segmentacion de textos por idioma puede ser abordada de dos maneras: la primera, asumiendo que los cambios de idioma solo ocurren en los saltos entre oraciones; y la segunda, asumiendo que el idioma puede cambiar en cualquier lugar del texto. En este trabajo se presentan metodos para segmentar ambos tipos de textos por idiomas. Para el primer caso se segmenta el texto a analizar por oraciones y luego se identifica el idioma de cada oracion; la segunda propuesta consiste en la adaptacion de los modelos ocultos de Markov a la tarea de segmentacion de textos por idiomas. El estado del arte es superado por ambas propuestas, segun los resultados obtenidos en la experimentacion realizada.
Productivity Measurement: Racing to Keep Up

This article provides a nontechnical review of the literature and issues related to the measurement of aggregate productivity. I begin with a discussion of productivity measures, their performance in recent decades, and key measurement puzzles that emerge from the data. The remainder of the review focuses on two important questions. First, how do we make more accurate the measures of prices used to deflate nominal output so as to win (or at least not lose) the race for economic measurement to keep up with a changing economy? I frame the issues and point to the most important and promising areas for further research. Second, what does or should GDP measure? I defend GDP as a valuable measure of production and offer suggestions for improving it. At the same time, I emphasize the importance of measuring economic welfare (well-being) and argue that GDP should be supplemented with a satellite account that measures economic welfare.
Why it would be strategically rational for Russia to escalate in Kaliningrad and the Suwalki corridor

Abstract Russian escalation activities related to the Suwalki corridor and wider Baltic security make a good case for demonstrating how theoretical models could help in terms of damage control in complicated security situations. This is especially true regarding how seemingly rational and morally impeccable options may eventually lead to a painful and costly security dilemma in which the available options become both too costly and publicly unacceptable. In order to grasp the inner workings of the “escalate-to-de-escalate” brinkmanship, the current study analyzes this phenomenon through the lens of the game theory model, “dollar auction,” and a concept of securitization. The aim of the study is to analyze which factors either hinder or support the escalation of tensions between Russia and the NATO Alliance in Kaliningrad and in the Suwalki corridor, and to discuss how far the potential conflict could go should it break out in the future.
The Macroeconomic Implications of Limited Arbitrage

We develop a simple general equilibrium model to study the interactions between financial arbitrage and the real economy under collateral constraints. In good times, arbitrage activities help boost the production sectors by providing external funds to capital investment. However, when exposed to adverse shocks and panic market reactions, arbitrage also amplifies the financial distress and makes it easier for the economy to fall into self-fulfilling crises. Moreover, the possibility of regime switches triggered by exogenous shocks also complicates the path to recovery. The orchestration of financial distress and pessimistic market anticipation not only slows down the recovery process, but also can trap the economy in a less healthy steady state.
Mutual Support, Role Breadth Self-Efficacy, and Sustainable Job Performance of Workers in Young Firms

Coworking space has flourished in the past decade. Unlike traditional shared services organizations, coworking spaces put a much greater emphasis on ‘sharing’. Members not only can share the physical office space, but also the virtual social spaces created by the coworking space operators managing the office. As coworking spaces provide a community to foster the culture of sharing, which gives rise to social interactions and thus knowledge and idea exchange, entrepreneurs favor such coworking spaces to achieve a higher level of job performance among their workers. Although it is generally accepted that a worker’s job performance varies over time within a job, there have been limited studies on within-person performance sustainability and its comparison with between-person sustainability. We sampled 101 workers of young firms operating in six coworking spaces in Singapore who completed daily surveys twice a day across ten consecutive workdays. By treating participants as the first level and daily observations as the second level, our study develops a dual-path model to explain how daily mutual support influences daily job performance. Our results indicated that daily mutual support is positively related to sustainable job performance after controlling for sleep quality, job requirements and workload stress. Within-person sustainability in mutual support was found to account for part of within-person variance in job performance. We established that mutual support not only predicts job performance, but also varies across workdays. As the collaboration of team members depends on cooperation rather than competition, mutual support is considered essential for team work and thus employees’ job performance. Our study also demonstrated the importance of role breadth self-efficacy as a moderator in the link between mutual support and sustainable job performance. Role breadth self-efficacy refers to the extent to which people feel confident that they are able to carry out a broader and more proactive role, beyond traditional prescribed technical requirements. The results revealed an enhancing moderation effect, where increasing the role breath self-efficacy would enhance the effect of the mutual support predictor on sustainable job performance of workers in young firms operating in the coworking space.
Quantum Field Theory And Critical Phenomena

Over the last twenty years quantum field theory has become not only the framework for the discussion of all fundamental interactions except gravity, but also for the understanding of second-order phase transitions in statistical mechanics. This advanced text is based on graduate courses and summer schools given by the author over a number of years. It approaches the subject in terms of path and functional intergrals, adopting a Euclidean metric and using the language of partition and correlation functions. Renormalization and the renormalization group are examined, as are critical phenomena and the role of instantons. Changes for this edition 1. Extensive revision to eliminate a few bugs that had survived the second edition and (mainly) to improve the pedagogical presentation, as a result of experience gathered by lecturing. 2. Additional new topics; holomorphic or coherent state path integral; functional integral and representation of the field theory S-matrix in the holomorphic formalis; non-relativistic limit of massive quantization and brief discussion of non-renormalization of quantum gravity based on Info rmat io n Discussio n (0 ) Files Ho ldings Search Submit Help CERN Document Server
The clustering properties of the Lyman α clouds

We analyze the clustering properties of a high-resolution (~10 km/s) sample of about 1600 Lyman-alpha lines in the spectra of 15 quasars, obtained in the framework of an ESO key-programme with the addition of literature data. The two-point correlation function in the velocity space shows a significant signal on small velocity scales (Delta v 14 and the halos of protogalactic systems.
Stimulating the preparedness to report crime : A study on the factors that influence the willingness to report crime of entrepreneurs and how to improve it.

Partnerships between the police and other organizations are becoming increasingly important. The police needs other organizations to fight crime and to increase their legitimacy. For better crime fighting the police needs to have reports filed by victims. The case is that victims are not always willing to report or mention crime. Especially about the willingness to report crime of entrepreneurs is done little research. Therefore this study aims to give a more comprehensive view of the willingness to report crime of entrepreneurs. A specific case is used to analyze the degree of willingness to report crime of entrepreneurs and how this is influenced. Multiple factors are discussed from various sources of literature.
Determinants of microbiological quality of drinking water in refugee camps and host communities in Gambella Region, Ethiopia

Inadequate improved water supply and sanitation, particularly in refugee camps contribute to the spread of infectious diseases. The study objective was to assess determinants of microbiological quality of drinking water in refugee camps and host communities in Gambella Region, Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study was conducted from September to December 2016 based on structured questionnaire-based interviews and testing household water using the portable Potatest+ water quality testing kit. Data were analyzed and P values <0.05 with 95% confidence interval (CI) were considered statistically significant. Results showed there were significant differences in fecal coliform count (P value = 0.009) and free residual chlorine concentration (P value = 0.01) between the source and stored water samples. Surface water source, water shortages in the previous month, and unavailability of free residual chlorine and caregivers without formal education were the main determinants of microbiological quality of stored water. Stored water was contaminated in many households in both the refugee and host communities. Designing and implementing appropriate community education and effective hygiene promotion programs are essential in improving community knowledge of water contamination and reducing diarrhea prevalence among under-five children in refugee camps and host communities in Gambella Region.
Health shocks and the added worker effect: a life cycle approach

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the existence of the added worker effect (AWE) when a male partner suffers a health shock (negative health event), by using the information from the Chilean Social Protection Survey. The health shocks considered in this study are new cases of arthritis, asthma and hypertension. We find that neither asthma nor hypertension diagnosis generates an AWE. In the case of arthritis, the study shows differentiated effects by age cohorts. More specifically, we find that women’s probability of labor force entry over three years increases by 50 percentage points when the husband between the ages of 18–44 is diagnosed with arthritis. This effect disappears in older age groups, which suggests that when studying the effect of health shocks, the differences between life cycle stages should be considered (chronic disabling conditions are an important source of financial risk for young households).
Race, Party, and Representation in Criminal Justice Politics

What explains racial inequalities in law enforcement and criminal justice policy? I argue that political representation plays a key role. Most explanations of representation focus on partisanship or use a left-right scale to measure the effectiveness of representation. However, liberal cities like Berkeley, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Seattle have racial disparities in policing that dwarf those found in Ferguson, the nation’s exemplar of unequal policing. Divisions by party and divisions by race interact to produce serious problems of representation on issues related to crime, policing, and violence. Black and white Democrats do not hold similar views; for both historical and electoral reasons, white Democrats have typically determined the party’s policy stances. As a result, black Americans face substantial barriers to obtaining representation on criminal justice issues (and beyond) through a partisan political system. Researchers should analyze parties as coalitions rather than homogeneous groups.
A Qur’anic Methodology for Integrating Knowledge and Education:

Integrating knowledge and education has become a major issue in Malaysia in the context of globalization. This study develops a teacher-centered Qur’anic methodology based on the integration of acquired (‘aqlī) and revealed (naqlī) knowledge as regards content, as well as the integration of teachers’ role in a teaching-learning process designed to empower students to manage “self” and “system. ” It further investigates the existing curriculum and institutional efforts to integrate these two types of knowledge, students’ understanding of the integrated knowledge and its learning process, as well as how the teachers and lecturers understand this integrated knowledge and apply it to their teaching methods. Data collected through interviews and surveys of participating school students and teachers, as well as university students and lecturers, revealed several issues that need to be addressed.
The Effect Of Social Progress And Education On Corruption: A Contingency Theory Perspective

Corruption, commonly defined as the abuse of public power for private gain, is a widespread phenomenon in many countries of the world where its consequences have serious problems. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the moderating role of national culture on the social progress-corruption link and education corruption link. It was hypothesized that social progress and education restrict corruption, and that the magnitude of these effects are contingent upon conditions of national culture. The data set for this study was obtained from secondary sources and it included the following measures : (1) the corruption perception index by Transparency International; (2) the social progress index provided by the non-profit organization the Social Progress Imperative; (3) the education index by United Nations Development Programme, and (4) the scores of Hofstede’s national culture dimensions. These measures were gathered for 84 countries across five continents (Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, and South America). Support was found for the main effect of social progress on corruption as well as for the main effect of education on corruption. Consistent with a contingency theory, the findings indicate that both social progress-corruption link and education corruption link are moderated by power distance and individualism. However, support for the moderating effect of two other national culture dimensions (masculinity and uncertainty avoidance) was not found. This study emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach in formulating anti-corruption policies and provides implications for policy-making to reduce corruption.
Faculty participation in University Governance in Vietnam

In Vietnam, in the process of transition to a market economy, Shared Governance has become a governance trend in public universities and private universities whereby state political governance is focused on state management agencies and state administrative agencies, schools are autonomously applying Shared Governance with the participation of parties including scientists, lecturers, students, individuals and groups inside and outside school. The article uses survey data from the topic of Hanoi National University: "Annual Education Report 2018: University Administration in Vietnam in transition process" (National University topic, code No. QG.18.27), by the group author of this article, aims to clarify faculty participation of school groups in managing human resources, academia and finance. Keywords University Governance; Shared Governance; Faculty participation References [1] W.O. Brown Jr, Faculty participation in university governance and the effects on university performance, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. 44(2) (2001) 129-143[2] W.A. Jones, Faculty involvement in institutional governance: A literature review, Journal of the Professoriate. 6(1) (2011) 118-135. [3] Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, Shared governanc: Changing with times, AGB’s White Paper March 2017. [4] Eurydice, Higher education governance in Europe. Policies, structures, funding and academic staff. Brussels: Eurydice, European Commission, Education and Culture DG, 2008. [5] J.A. Banks, An introduction to multicultural education, 2008. [6] S.R. Arnstein, A ladder of citizen participation, Journal of the American Institute of planners. 35(4) (1969) 216-224.
China's Overinvestment and International Trade Conflicts

For a long time, China’s impressive growth performance has been driven by investment and high productivity gains. Based on the recent discussion on possible overcapacities and overinvestment in China, the paper investigates the sustainability of China’s investment- and export-driven growth model. It is shown that since the turn of the millennium buoyant capital inflows and low interest rates have been at the roots of overinvestment and misallocation of capital, which necessitated export subsidies to clear markets. The overinvestment boom is argued to have ended around 2014. Since then, the overcapacities have weakened China’s bargaining position in the US-Chinese trade conflict and have tempted the Chinese authorities to postpone a restructuring of the Chinese economy by low-interest credit provision. The resulting gradual reemergence of quasi soft budget constraints is seen to undermine China’s long-term growth potential.