Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Common Volatility Trends in the Central and Eastern European Currencies and the Euro

How much convergence has been achieved between Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies and the eurozone? We explore this question by comparing long-run volatility trends in CEE currencies and the euro. We find that these trends are closely correlated, pointing to convergence in the economic and financial structures of these economies. Nonetheless, the degree of commonality remains weaker than what had been found for major European currencies before the introduction of the euro. Spillovers of volatility across regional markets appear to have diminished over time, with the exception of the Hungarian forint, which remains a source of volatility shocks to regional currencies.
Magnetic field regulated infall on the disc around the massive protostar Cepheus A HW2

We present polarization observations of the 6.7-GHz methanol masers around the massive protostar Cepheus A HW2 and its associated disc. The data were taken with the Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network. The maser polarization is used to determine the full three-dimensional magnetic field structure around Cepheus A HW2. The observations suggest that the masers probe the large-scale magnetic field and not isolated pockets of a compressed field. We find that the magnetic field is predominantly aligned along the protostellar outflow and perpendicular to the molecular and dust disc. From the three-dimensional magnetic field orientation and measurements of the magnetic field strength along the line of sight, we are able to determine that the high-density material, in which the masers occur, is threaded by al arge-scale magnetic fi eld of! 23 mG. This indicates that the protostellar environment at ! 1000 au from Cepheus A HW2 is slightly supercritical (""1.7) and the relation between density and magnetic field is consistent with the collapse along the magnetic field lines. Thus, the observations indicate that the magnetic field likely regulates accretion on to the disc. The magnetic field dominates the turbulent energies by approximately a factor of 3 and is sufficiently strong to be the crucial component stabilizing the massive accretion disc and sustaining the high accretion rates needed during massive star formation.
The Feasibility of Using Tartary Buckwheat as a Se-Containing Food Material

Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) is a semiwild plant grown in the Himalaya region. Due to its high concentration of flavonoids and trace elements it is of interest for cultivation in other countries as well. The feasibility of increasing the concentration of Se in grain and in green parts of Tartary buckwheat has not yet been investigated. The aim of this investigation was thus to determine the concentration of Se in different edible parts of Tartary buckwheat treated with different concentrations of Na selenate using different techniques. In plants grown in soil fertilized once with 0.5 and 10 mg Se L−1, Se was efficiently translocated from the roots to the leaves and seeds. Foliar spraying with 0.5 mg Se L−1 increased Se content in leaves and seeds. Among the edible parts of Tartary buckwheat plants the highest content of Se in control and in treated groups was found in leaves, followed by seeds and stems. Regarding recommended Se concentration, edible parts of Tartary buckwheat were safe for human consumption. Soil fertilization with 0.5 and 10 mg Se L−1 and foliar fertilization with 0.5 mg Se L−1 are applicable for cultivation of Tartary buckwheat as a functional food enriched with Se.
New Onset Diabetes Mellitus after Transplantation (NODAT)-An Analysis of Incidence, Risk Factors and its Effects on Renal Allograft

Aim: New Onset Diabetes after Transplantation (NODAT) is one of the medical complications after kidney transplantation which affects adversely the allograft kidney and patient outcomes. The aim of this study was to know the incidence of development of NODAT, investigate risk factors and its effects on allograft kidney in our centre.Material and methods: This is a retrospective observational study of the patients who underwent the kidney transplant at the Narayana Medical College & Hospital from June 2009 to May 2016. Patients were divided into NODAT and non NODAT groups.Results: 21 out of 84 patients (25%) developed NODAT during the follow up period of 1st year post transplantation. We found age >30 years (OR: 3.8; P=0.012), family history of diabetes (OR: 8.6; P=0.0004), impaired fasting glucose (OR: 7.27; P=0.0003), postoperative hyperglycaemia (OR: 2.83; P=0.04), fasting triglycerides >150 mg/dl. (OR: 8.0 P=0.0001) and VLDL levels (42.52 ± 30.81 mg/dl. vs. 24.24 ± 5.51 mg/dl; P= 0.01) were risk factors for NODAT. Mean serum creatinine values were 1.23 ± 0.25 mg/dl vs.1. 16 ± 0.35mg/dl (P= 0.42) and 1.61 ± 0.53 mg/dl vs. 1.44 ± 0.54 mg/dl (P= 0.24) at the end of 1st month and 1st year post-transplantation in NODAT and non NODAT groups respectively.Conclusion: The cumulative incidence of NODAT was 25% by the end of the1st post-transplantation year. Increasing age, family history of diabetes, dyslipidemia, pre-transplantation impaired fasting glucose and postoperative hyperglycaemia were considered as risk factors, some of which can be quite modifiable.
Conceptual Graphs for Semantics and Knowledge Processing

This paper discusses the representational and algorithmic power of the conceptual graph model for natural language semantics and knowledge processing. Also described is a Prolog-like resolution method for conceptual graphs, which allows to perform deduction on very large semantic domains. The interpreter developed is similar to a Prolog interpreter in which the terms are any conceptual graphs and in which the unification algorithm is replaced by a specialized algorithm for conceptual graphs.
Postconditioning Reduces Enzymatic Infarct Size and Improves Microvascular Reperfusion in Patients with ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction

Objectives: Postconditioning has been reported to reduce infarct size in ST-segment myocardial infarction (STEMI). However, recently, few other studies did not show any effect of postconditioning and suggested that it may be even harmful. We sought to assess whether postconditioning could reduce infarct size and improve myocardial reperfusion in early presenters with STEMI. Methods: 72 STEMI patients treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) were randomly assigned to either the postconditioning (n = 35) or the standard PCI group (control group; n = 37). Blood samples were obtained for creatine kinase (CK) and its MB isoform (CK-MB) within 36 h. The angiographic (myocardial blush grade, MBG) and electrocardiographic (ST-segment resolution, STR) data were evaluated and compared between groups. Results: The areas under the curve of CK and CK-MB release were significantly reduced in the postconditioning group compared with the control group (38,612.91 ± 25,028.42 vs. 60,547.30 ± 25,264.63 for CK and 5,498.23 ± 3,787.91 vs. 7,443.12 ± 3,561.13 for CK-MB, p < 0.0001). MBG was significantly better in the postconditioning group than in the control group (MBG 3: 82.3 vs. 47.1%, p = 0.0023). In the postconditioning group, STR >70% was more often observed (97.1 vs. 64.1%, p = 0.0007). Conclusions: In patients with STEMI, postconditioning could significantly reduce enzymatic infarct size and improve myocardial reperfusion.
Impact of Telemedicine in Management of Chronic Diseases

ABSTRACT Diagnosis of chronic diseases have an impact on patient’s quality of life and the healthcare system. Telemedicine facilitates the delivery of medical intervention at home to improve health outcomes and reduces cost to the NHS. Adoption of telemedicine for routine management of chronic diseases impacts the healthcare patients and healthcare professionals, however, there are several challenges affecting the adoption of telemedicine into routine healthcare delivery. Lack of universal regulations and quality assurance protocol can impact the widescale implementation of telemedicine into routine healthcare. Therefore, further research, support and training is required for successful adoption for routine management of chronic diseases.
Using Geophysical Methods to Study the Shallow Subsurface of a Sensitive Alpine Environment, Niwot Ridge, Colorado Front Range, U.S.A

ABSTRACT Shallow seismic refraction (SSR) and ground penetrating radar (GPR) are non-invasive geophysical techniques that enhance studies of the shallow subsurface deposits which control many geomorphic and biogeochemical processes. These techniques permit measuring the thickness and material properties of these deposits in sensitive alpine areas without using extensive pits and trenches that can impact current biogeospheric processes or distort them for future research. Application of GPR and SSR along 1.5 km of geophysical lines shows that layers of fine to coarse, blocky deposits of periglacial origin underlie alpine slopes in the vicinity of Niwot Ridge, Colorado Front Range. Interpretation of geophysical and drilling data shows that depth to bedrock ranges from 4 to >10 m and is not simply related to local slope. Our measurements suggest that ice lenses form seasonally beneath solifluction lobes; ice was not present in adjacent areas. Ice lenses are associated with local ponded water and saturated sediments that result from topographic focusing and low-permeability layers beneath active periglacial features. Geophysical interpretations are mainly consistent with data derived from nearby drill cores and corroborate the utility of GPR in combination with SSR for collecting subsurface data required by different landscape models in sensitive alpine environments.
Deep Appearance Features Deep Motion Features VGG Shallow Deep ActionTubes Crop Cropped Image TIR Optical Flow Support correlation filters Continuous Response Map

Compared with visible object tracking, thermal infrared (TIR) object tracking can track an arbitrary target in total darkness since it cannot be influenced by illumination variations. However, there are many unwanted attributes that constrain the potentials of TIR tracking, such as the absence of visual color patterns and low resolutions. Recently, structured output support vector machine (SOSVM) and discriminative correlation filter (DCF) have been successfully applied to visible object tracking, respectively. Motivated by these, in this paper, we propose a large margin structured convolution operator (LMSCO) to achieve efficient TIR object tracking. To improve the tracking performance, we employ the spatial regularization and implicit interpolation to obtain continuous deep feature maps, including deep appearance features and deep motion features, of the TIR targets. Finally, a collaborative optimization strategy is exploited to significantly update the operators. Our approach not only inherits the advantage of the strong discriminative capability of SOSVM but also achieves accurate and robust tracking with higher-dimensional features and more dense samples. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to incorporate the advantages of DCF and SOSVM for TIR object tracking. Comprehensive evaluations on two thermal infrared tracking benchmarks, i.e. VOT-TIR2015 and VOT-TIR2016, clearly demonstrate that our LMSCO tracker achieves impressive results and outperforms most state-of-the-art trackers in terms of accuracy and robustness with sufficient frame rate.
Evaluation on Cooling Effect on Solar PV Power Output Using Laminar H2O Surface Method

This paper discusses the comparison of output power and efficiency between continuous cooling system, cooling system every one hour and non-cooling system of solar photovoltaic panel. The output power calculated for the continuous cooling system was 68.8 Watt, cooling system every one hour was 65.11 Watt and 59.06 Watt for non-cooling system respectively for the latitude of University Malaysia Sabah (6°01’53.73’’N, 116°07’14.98’’E). Meanwhile, the efficiency percentage of this system was 29.82%, 15.11% and 13.1% respectively. The maximum temperature for continuous cooling system panel was 38.9˚C at 2 pm, cooling system every one hour was 48.2˚C at 11 am and non-cooling system was found 53.3˚C at 1 pm. Power output measurement was conducted for 10 days from 13 th to 22 nd March 2016. The corresponding maximum global solar radiation was 1052.9 W/m² on 17 th March 2016 at 2 pm whereas the highest hourly average was 970.17 W/m 2 at 1 pm. Therefore, it can be concluded that generally output power for cooling system is higher compared to non-cooling system.
Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights

Delineating demographic structure across an organism’s range can reveal the extent to which population dynamics in different geographic areas are driven by local or external factors and can be crucial for effective conservation and management. Obtaining optimal data for such analyses can be time and resource-intensive and impending development and resource extraction pressures may necessitate the examination of existing data, even when they are less than ideal. We analyzed a historic telemetry dataset containing satellite radio-collar locations of 73 forest-dwelling woodland caribou in northern Ontario to determine demographic structure. We applied several clustering methods (i.e., agglomerative, divisive and fuzzy k-means) to median seasonal locations. Results were used to distinguish demographic units and minimum convex polygons and fixed-kernel density estimates were used to delineate unit boundaries and core areas. For areas where sampling was considered representative of the distribution of caribou on the landscape, we assessed demographic distinctness by evaluating intra-individual variation in cluster membership, membership strength and distance between boundaries and core areas of adjacent units. The number and composition of clusters identified was similar among methods and caribou were grouped into 6 general clusters. The distinctions between the three clusters identified in the central portion of the province (i.e., Lac Seul, Wabakimi, Geraldton) and the two clusters identified in the eastern portion of the province (i.e., Cochrane and Cochrane-Quebec) were determined to represent demographic structuring. Additional distinctions in other areas (i.e., between The Red Lake and Lac Seul clusters in the west and between the central and eastern clusters) may just be artifacts of the original sampling effort. Amongst demographic units, there was no evidence of individual flexibility in cluster membership and average membership strength was very high. There was little to no overlap between boundaries and core areas of adjacent units, but distances between adjacent unit boundaries were relatively low. Additional sampling effort is needed to further delineate demographic structure in Ontario caribou.
THE EFFECT OF RESIDENTIAL ACCESSIBILITY TO EMPLOYMENT ON MEN'S AND WOMEN'S TRAVEL

This research explores the effect of residential gravity accessibility by automobile to all employment in the Atlanta metropolitan region on the quantity and nature of travel by men and women. The literature suggests that greater accessibility of residential locations is associated with more, but shorter trips, resulting in less travel. Using the Atlanta Regional Commission's 1990 Household Travel Survey, the author evaluated household and personal travel behavior and found: (1) individuals and households who live in more accessible portions of the metropolitan area spend significantly fewer minutes in travel; (2) among individuals this effect is seen primarily for employed men; (3) residential accessibility's effect on numbers of motorized trips is ambiguous and often insignificant, though students who were not employed and lived in more accessible locations made significantly fewer home-based school trips by motorized vehicle. These results demonstrate that residential accessibility does affect travel, reinforcing the belief that land use policy and physical planning to improve accessibility may provide means of manipulating travel demand to achieve higher quality of life, enhanced economic development and more efficient transportation. However, some planning policies aimed at least partly at increasing accessibility (zoning for higher densities, fostering mixed uses, achieving jobs-housing balance) can be costly, unpopular, or both. This research also demonstrates that residential accessibility's effects on travel, though significant, do not affect everyone, suggesting they may not be worth large sacrifices. Finally, though these effects are significant, and gravity measures of accessibility may help transportation planners predict the results of planned and unplanned changes when used with other information, they do not predict travel behavior well when used alone.
Fungal succession on bamboo in Hong Kong

Fungal succession on Bambusa tuldoides has been studied in Hong Kong. Fungal communities changed over time during the decay process. Based on sporulation of fungi, the fungal communities on bamboo baits can be categorized into early colonisers, middle-stage colonisers, later colonisers, regular inhabitants and sporadic inhabitants. Fungal communities on naturally dead bamboo and baits comprised rare species and mainly middle-stage colonisers. Seasonality had an effect, as more fungi were present during the wet season. Rainfall positively impacted on fungal occurrence, but temperature and relative humidity appeared to have little influence. Anthostomella species are regular inhabitants of bamboo, being dominant throughout the observation period and probably play a dominant role in its decomposition.
Similarity between Euclidean and cosine angle distance for nearest neighbor queries

Understanding the relationship among different distance measures is helpful in choosing a proper one for a particular application. In this paper, we compare two commonly used distance measures in vector models, namely, Euclidean distance (EUD) and cosine angle distance (CAD), for nearest neighbor (NN) queries in high dimensional data spaces. Using theoretical analysis and experimental results, we show that the retrieval results based on EUD are similar to those based on CAD when dimension is high. We have applied CAD for content based image retrieval (CBIR). Retrieval results show that CAD works no worse than EUD, which is a commonly used distance measure for CBIR, while providing other advantages, such as naturally normalized distance.
Captive Breeding and Hatchery Production of Mouth Brooding Jewel Cardinal Perch, Pterapogon Kauderni, (Koumanns, 1933) Using Brackish Water: The Role of Live Prey and Green Water Enrichment in Juvenile Production

An attempt was made to study the captive breeding and larval rearing of the Cardinal fish Pterapogon kauderni using brackish water for the first time in India. P. kauderni, a mouth brooder fish was procured from the traders at the size range of 4-6 cm and acclimatized under captive conditions. Suitable water quality parameters were maintained and standardized. The fish was fed with boiled clam meat, octopus, oyster, squid and trash fish thrice a day. Spawning took place after two months of rearing, in between 10:45-13:00 hrs and hatch out occurred after the sunset. Incubation was in the male’s mouth, which was extended up to 21-23 days and after hatch out, juveniles were separated from the parental tank. The tanks were maintained with optimal physico-chemical conditions as in the parent tanks. Different light intensities and diets were provided for the successful of juveniles rearing. Good survival (58%) was achieved by adopting the photoperiod 24L/0D. the results illustrated that the photoperiod and different diets given to the juveniles influences the physiological performance of the juveniles. SGR, FCR and AGR of juveniles of P. kauderni increased significantly with the increase of the photoperiod (P<0.05). Babies looked like their parents at birth and within a week, they obtained parental coloration. Comparatively higher growth rate was observed, when they were fed with algal enriched artemia than the Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acid (PUFA). Babies reached the marketable size within 45 days. This study deliberately reveals that, breeding and rearing of the marine fish P. kauderni using the estuarine water and also reveals the physiological response of juveniles of P. kauderni to the change of photoperiod and substantiated that photoperiod and different diets influences the juvenile growth, survival and feeding.
11-29-2004 Aid and regulation

In recent decades, one of the objectives of international development assistance has been to encourage developing country governments to reorient their economies from highly regulated and centrally controlled to deregulated and market-based. However, poor economic performance on its own might well necessitate such a shift. Does aid from donors accelerate this process by providing additional incentives and critical resources (finance and advice)? Or do donor funds slow the retreat of the state by lessening financial crises and indirectly promoting state control (e.g., through state-run development projects)? This paper contributes to the empirical analysis of this question by examining the link between aid flows and regulatory burden. Using an instrumental variables method on panel data from 71 aid receiving countries from 1970 to 1995, estimation results support the first position. Donor funds favor more heavily regulated economies and successfully promoted deregulation. This apparent example of successful conditionality points to the importance of a more disaggregate analysis of the interaction of aid and policy in developing countries. JEL classification codes: F35, L51, O19
Receiver functions using OBS data: promises and limitations from numerical modelling and examples from the Cascadia Initiative

The expanding fleet of broadband ocean-bottom seismograph (OBS) stations is facilitating the study of the structure and seismicity of oceanic plates at regional scales. For continental studies, an important tool to characterize continental crust and mantle structure is the analysis of teleseismic P receiver functions. In the oceans, however, receiver functions potentially suffer from several limiting factors that are unique to ocean sites and plate structures. In this study we model receiver functions for a variety of oceanic lithospheric structures to investigate the possibilities and limitations of receiver functions using OBS data. Several potentially contaminating effects are examined, including pressure reverberations from the water column for various ocean-floor depths and the effects of a layer of low-velocity marine sediments. These modelling results indicate that receiver functions from OBS data are difficult to interpret in the presence of marine sediments, but shallow-water sites in subduction zone forearcs may be suitable for constraining various crustal elements around the locked megathrust fault. We propose using a complementary approach based on transfer function modelling combined with a grid search approach that bypasses receiver functions altogether and estimates model properties directly from minimally processed waveforms. Using real data examples from the Cascadia Initiative, we show how receiver and transfer functions can be used to infer seismic properties of the oceanic plate in both shallow (Cascadia forearc) and deep (Juan de Fuca Ridge) ocean settings.
Insider Trading: Should It Be Prohibited?

Insider trading moves forward the resolution of uncertainty. Using a rational expectations model with endogenous investment level, I show that, when insider trading is permitted, (i) stock prices better reflect information and will be higher on average, (ii) expected real investment will rise, (iii) markets are less liquid, (iv) owners of investment projects and insiders will benefit, and (v) outside investors and liquidity traders will be hurt. Total welfare may increase or decrease depending on the economic environment. Factors that favor the prohibition of insider trading are identified.