Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Forecasting Sovereign Default Risk with Merton’s Model

Merton’s structural model for sovereigns is proven to be useful to analyze the default risk of a country. We are the first to investigate how fast CDS spreads react to changes in model inputs and outputs. CDS spread changes strongly correlate with exchange rate returns, which are an input to the model. But CDS spread changes on average react with a delay to changes in model outputs such as the distance to default, the default probability, and model spreads. Hence, contingency claim analysis for sovereigns provides useful predictions for CDS spreads.
Oceanic Island Basalts and Mantle Plumes: The Geochemical Perspective

Mantle plumes—which are usually, but not always, chemically distinct from the mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB)—may be rooted in the core-mantle boundary and begin with large voluminous heads triggering massive eruptions or be headless and arise in the mid-mantle. Geochemistry provides convincing evidence that mantle plumes are 100–300°C hotter than normal upper mantle and that upwelling rates within the melting region are faster than beneath mid-ocean ridges. 186Os/188Os hints at the possibility of material from Earth's core in the Hawaiian plume, but this is not seen in other oceanic island basalt (OIB) and has not been confirmed by 182W/184W measurements. High 3He/4He in plumes does not require a primordial deep-mantle reservoir. The geochemical signature of mantle plumes originates primarily through melting in the upper mantle, probably through creation and subduction of oceanic lithosphere, but the details remain obscure. Plumes are lithologically heterogeneous, consisting of stringers of mafic material .
Bra-F Mutation in Papillary Thyroid Cancer

Purpose of Work: As a highly specific mutation of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), BRAFV600E dosage in thyroid fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC),has been shown to be useful in indeterminate cytology.PTC represents the most common histotype of thyroid cancers (85-90%). In these tumors, the most frequent genetic alterations are those responsible for the oncogenic activation of genes such as B-RAF, RET, NTRK1, RAS, MET, and silencing of oncosuppressive genes such as p53, RASSF1-A, PTEN, PPARY and CDK inhibitor. B-RAFV600E is present in approximately 50% of PTCs, responding with more aggressive variants of this cancer in terms of invasion, clinical stage, risk of recovery and sensitivity to radio iodine therapy. Materials and Methods: We conducted a prospective randomized study on 50 patients who attend to our structure from 2013 to 2016 in order to study the predictive effects of the B-RAF mutation on fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in patients with nodular thyroid disease. Results: From our study we can see that the molecular dosage of B-RAF is superfluous when the cytomorphological examination is based on characteristics of benignity (Tir 2) or malignancy (Tir 5); it is of great help in cases of indefinite (Tir 3) or suspicion nodule (Tir 4), even though its negativity does not allow us to exclude a cancer, its positivity gives us a diagnosis of certainty. Conclusions: Improvement of FNAC’s diagnostic accuracy through the molecular dosage of mutated B-RAF represents a valuable achievement for the management of patients with nodular thyroid disease with clinical-instrumental features of suspicion both for preoperative and postoperative strategies, permitting us to quickly dispel the uncertainties of the cytomorphological examination and allowing to start the patient towards the most appropriate therapeutic strategy. Received: August 6, 2018; Accepted: August 20, 2018; Published: September 14, 2018 *Corresponding author: Federica Gallucci, MD, Department of Medical, Surgical, Neurological, Metabolic and Aging Sciences SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY. Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”. Piazza Miraglia 2 80138, Naples, Italy. Tel: 00390815665094; E-mail:federicagallucci@hotmail.it Fulvio Freda, Researcher, Department of Medical, Surgical, Neurological, Metabolic and Aging Sciences SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY. Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”. Piazza Miraglia 2 80138, Naples, Italy. Tel: 00393332670626; E-mail: fulvio.freda@unicampania.it
WHAT EXPLAINS THE GREAT MODERATION IN THE U.S.? A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS

This paper investigates what has caused output and inflation volatility to fall in the U.S. using a small scale structural model using Bayesian techniques and rolling samples. There are instabilities in the posterior of the parameters describing the private sector, the policy rule, and the variance of the shocks. Results are robust to the specification of the policy rule. Changes in the parameters describing the private sector are the largest, but those of the policy rule and the covariance matrix of the shocks explain the changes most. (JEL: E52, E47, C53) (c) 2009 by the European Economic Association.
New insights on protective treatments for marble by FIB-SEM

In this study, we investigated by FIB-SEM the microstructure of protective coatings formed by two inorganic treatments (namely, ammonium oxalate and ammonium phosphate solutions), with the aim of identifying the factors limiting the protective efficacy of the coatings and outlining possible improvement strategies. In the case of the oxalate treatment, the resulting layer of whewellite was found to contain vertical channels, which can allow water to reach the marble surface and trigger dissolution. Possible prevention of the formation of these channels by addition of a calcium source to the oxalate solution was attempted, but even micromolar additions led to rapid precipitation in the solution. In the case of the phosphate treatment, the resulting hydroxyapatite and octacalcium phosphate coating was found to be cracked and porous. To prevent cracks and pores, diminishing the ammonium phosphate concentration and adding ethanol to the solution were found to be effective strategies, as cracks were prevented and pores were reduced almost to zero. The resulting protective efficacy of the coating was found to be significantly improved, although still not perfect.
Screening of Hydro-alcoholic Extract of Eclipta alba for its Anticancerous Efficacy

Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases of the 20th century and is spreading further with continuance and increasing incidence in 21st century. Cancer is an abnormal growth of cells. There are more than 100 types of cancer, including breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma. Plants have been extensively used as natural sources to develop anticancerous activity due to their active chemical constituents. In our study anticancerous activity of Eclipta alba was examined in-vivo against Ehrlich Ascites Carcinoma on Swiss albino mice. The methanolic extract of E. alba restore the mean survival time and decrease tumour volume count in treated mice. Consequently, our study revealed that the methanolic extract of E. alba showed anticancer activity.
Measuring subhalo mass in redMaPPer clusters with CFHT Stripe 82 Survey

Based on observations obtained with MegaPrime/MegaCam, a joint project of CFHT and CEA/DAPNIA, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institut National des Science de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France, and the University of Hawaii. The Brazilian partnership on CFHT is managed by the Laboratorio Nacional de Astrofisica (LNA). This work made use of the CHE cluster, managed and funded by ICRA/CBPF/MCTI, with financial support from FINEP and FAPERJ. We thank the support of the Laboratrio Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia (LIneA). We thank the CFHTLenS team for their pipeline development and verification upon which much of this surveys pipeline was built. ; LR acknowledges the NSFC (grant no. 11303033,11133003), the support from Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS. HYS acknowledges the support from Marie-Curie International Fellowship (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IIF/327561), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and NSFC of China under grants 11103011. HJM acknowledges support of NSF AST-0908334, NSF AST-1109354 and NSF AST-1517528. JPK acknowledges support from the ERC advanced grant LIDA and from CNRS. TE is supported by the Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaft through the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre TR 33 - The Dark Universe. AL is supported by World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI Initiative), MEXT, Japan. BM acknowledges financial support from the CAPES Foundation grant 12174-13-0. MM is partially supported by CNPq (grant 486586/2013-8) and FAPERJ (grant E-26/110.516/2-2012).
Niche partitioning in crocodiles Niche partitioning between juvenile sympatric crocodilians in Mesangat Lake , East Kalimantan , Indonesia

Crocodilians are apex predators and sympatric species are likely to have different ecologies or morphologies in order to minimise competition between species, i.e., niche partitioning. Here, we examined the ecological niche factors that may affect competition between juvenile Siamese crocodiles (Crocodylus siamensis) and Tomistoma (Tomistoma schlegelii) in Mesangat Lake — the only documented area where the two species co-exist. This location has also been subjected to recent disturbance from logging and oil palm development. We identified and compared preferred habitats and stomach contents of each species. Tomistoma schlegelii were found predominantly in flooded forests, while C. siamensis were mainly in open areas. However, overlap in prey choice between juvenile T. schlegelii and C. siamensis was significantly higher than expected by chance and invertebrates were the most frequent prey items in both species. High overlap in prey choice between the two species suggests that juvenile T. schlegelii and C. siamensis are generalist predators. Furthermore, the evidence of separation of habitat combined with overlap in prey choice indicates competition-driven niche partitioning between C. siamensis and T. schlegelii. This paper provides basis for co-ordinated conservation efforts for the two threatened species in this unique ecosystem.
Corrections and Simple Justice

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice. Being first virtues of human activities, truth and justice are uncompromising. ' JOHN RAWLS A Theory of Justice
Preliminary Study of the Reliability and Validity of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale in Lao PDR

Different cultures often express the same symptoms of physical and mental disorders in different ways. Therefore, the original four-factor structure of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) may not be appropriate in all cultural contexts. This study aimed to develop a Laotian version of the CES-D, investigate the reliability and validity of the Laotian CES-D, and examine its factorial properties. This study was conducted in Laos PDR in February 2010. Data were collected from 189 staff members and teachers from the Faculty of Education, National University of Laos using the Laotian CES-D. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were conducted to determine the structure of the Laotian CES-D. We tested whether the Laotian CES-D differed from a single factor model of the 20-item CES-D, and from Radloff’s original four-factor solution. CFA results indicated that neither the single factor model nor the four-factor solution was a good fit for a Laotian sample. EFA was conducted to determine a Laotian-specific model, which was tested using CFA. Five items that had low commonality and low factor loadings were excluded in the CFA. Next, we determined a best fit structure comprising three factors: “Sadness/loneliness”, “Psychosomatic symptoms”, and “Lack of positive affect”. This Laotian CES-D model showed high reliability (alpha = 0.81). “Dislike” items loaded on the “Interpersonal” factor in Radloff’s model, but loaded on the “Sadness/loneliness” factor in the Laotian model. Items indicating depressive feelings, somatic complaints, and interpersonal relationships were combined into one factor (“Sadness/loneliness”) in the Laotian model. Moreover, items indicating depressive feelings and somatic complaints were combined into the “Psychosomatic symptoms” factor in the Laotian model.
Musical tempo stability in mental practice: A comparison of motor and non-motor imagery techniques

The ability to maintain steady tempos using two different mental practice techniques was assessed through measurement of excerpt duration fluctuations. Ten musicians of various voice and instrument types participated in a two-part experiment. First, I recorded participants’ metronomic performances of lyrical and technical excerpts, which were selected from their repertoire. Next, participants mentally rehearsed their two excerpts over a total of 12 trials. Participants attempted to imagine a steady tempo that reflected the tempo of their actual performance. During each trial, participants heard a 3-second prompt from their recorded performance; following the prompt, each participant continued to mentally rehearse the respective excerpt while using one of two strategies. Participants engaged in two types of mental practice: non-motor imagery and motor imagery. At the end of each trial, participants rang a call bell to indicate each imagined excerpt’s ending articulation. Analysis of the magnitude and direction of excerpt duration discrepancies showed no significant differences in mean tempo accuracy when using the two different mental practice strategies. Non-motor and motor imagery exhibited differences of tempo variance across the two excerpt types: non-motor imagery was more consistent internally across a broad range of tempos. I also observed two significant interactions between successive mental rehearsals: musical sophistication and excerpt note density. In addition, repeated mental rehearsals of a musical tempo seem to settle into a more precise tempo; and motor imagery might provide support for this phenomenon. Both motor and non-motor forms of imagery may have specific applications to different goals in the mental rehearsal of musical tempo.
The 2016 super-Eddington outburst of SMC X-3: X-ray and optical properties and system parameters

On 2016 July 30 (MJD 57599), observations of the Small Magellanic Cloud by Swift/XRT found an increase in X-ray counts coming from a position consistent with the Be/X-ray binary pulsar SMC X-3. Follow-up observations on 2016 August 3 (MJD 57603) and 2016 August 10 (MJD 57610) revealed a rapidly increasing count rate and confirmed the onset of a new X-ray outburst from the system. Further monitoring by Swift began to uncover the enormity of the outburst, which peaked at 1.2 × 1039 erg s−1 on 2016 August 25 (MJD 57625). The system then began a gradual decline in flux that was still continuing over 5 months after the initial detection. We explore the X-ray and optical behaviour of SMC X-3 between 2016 July 30 and 2016 December 18 during this super-Eddington outburst. We apply a binary model to the spin-period evolution that takes into account the complex accretion changes over the outburst, to solve for the orbital parameters. Our results show SMC X-3 to be a system with a moderately low eccentricity amongst the Be/X-ray binary systems and to have a dynamically determined orbital period statistically consistent with the prominent period measured in the OGLE optical light curve. Our optical and X-ray derived ephemerides show that the peak in optical flux occurs roughly 6 d after periastron. The measured increase in I-band flux from the counterpart during the outburst is reflected in the measured equivalent width of the Hα line emission, though the Hα emission itself seems variable on sub-day time-scales, possibly due to the NS interacting with an inhomogeneous disc.
Characteristics of sea ice floe size distribution in the seasonal ice zone

The size distribution of sea ice floes was observed by coordinated Landsat imagery and video monitoring conducted from an icebreaker and a helicopter for an area 38 km × 26 km in seasonal sea ice in the southern Sea of Okhotsk in February 2003. The combination of imagery on several scales allowed measurements of ice floes over three orders of magnitude, from 1 m to 1.5 km. Two different regimes were observed: floes larger than about 40 m have a power‐law number density with an exponent of −1.87, in the lower range of earlier results. Below 40 m, the power law exponent is −1.15. The cause of these two different regimes is hypothesized to lie in the effects of swell on floes of different sizes and thicknesses. The importance of the floe size distribution for lateral melting is elucidated.
The Costs of Agglomeration: House and Land Prices in French Cities

We develop a new methodology to estimate the elasticity of urban costs with respect to city population using French house and land price data. After handling a number of estimation concerns, we find that the elasticity of urban costs increases with city population with an estimate of about 0.03 for an urban area with 100,000 inhabitants to 0.08 for an urban area of the size of Paris. Our approach also yields a number of intermediate outputs of independent interest such as the share of housing in expenditure, the elasticity of unit house and land prices with respect to city population, and within-city distance gradients for house and land prices.
Unified Preventive and Reactive Cyber Defense Dynamics Is Still Globally Convergent

A class of the preventive and reactive cyber defense dynamics has recently been proven to be <italic>globally convergent</italic>, meaning that the dynamics <italic>always</italic> converges to a unique equilibrium whose location only depends on the values of the model parameters (but not the initial state of the dynamics). In this paper, we unify the aforementioned class of preventive and reactive cyber defense dynamics models and the closely related class of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-intertwined epidemic models into a single framework. We prove that the unified dynamics is still globally convergent under some mild conditions, which are naturally satisfied by the two specific classes of dynamics models mentioned above and are inevitable when analyzing a more general framework. We also characterize the convergence speed of the unified dynamics. As a corollary, we obtain that the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-intertwined epidemic model and its extension are globally convergent, together with a <italic>full</italic> characterization on their convergence speed, which is only partially addressed in the literature.
A Cultural-Historical Interpretation of Resilience: the implications for practice

Recent attempts at preventing the social exclusion of vulnerable children in England have been driven by notions of resilience which centre primarily on changing children so that they may be better able to cope with adversity. Drawing on the concepts of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), we suggest that the idea of resilience should be expanded to include developing a capacity to act on and reshape the social conditions of one’s development. We use evidence from two studies of practices in recent re-configurations of children’s services in England to examine whether practitioners are seeing resilience in these terms. We present examples of work which embody these views but suggest that they are not easily incorporated into practices where expertise is centred on care and clear communication. The care and communication model of practice reflects the emphases given to evolutionary notions of child development while a CHAT view of resilience reflects Vygotsky’s concerns with a dialectic between individuals and the social situations of their development.
BORDER BARRIERS IN AGRICULTURAL TRADE AND THE IMPACT OF THEIR ELIMINATION: EVIDENCE FROM EAST ASIA

Abstract: By means of a GTAP based-CGE model, we investigate the impact of the elimination of import tariffs and non-tariff policy barriers (NTPBs) on agricultural trade towards East Asian FTAs. To do that, we first measure the NTPBs by employing a widely-used method derived from the literature on border effects. Next, by adding into the GTAP database our estimates on the NTPBs, which the original GTAP database by its nature does not succeed in incorporating, we compute the impact of the entire elimination of policy barriers (the complete reduction of import tariffs and of NTPBs) on GDP.
Piketty Versus Pasinetti: A Comment on Taylor

In order to use a theoretical framework to interpret real phenomena, two questions made absolutely clear: (1) What is the phenomenon that the framework is intended to investigate? In other words: what question is the framework intended to answer? (2) What is the correspondence between theoretical and empirical magnitudes? Piketty (2014) employs the usual, neoclassical, growth-theoretical tools in an attempt to explain actual long-run inequality dynamics, from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. However, the attempt is flawed from the very beginning, owing to the fact that the model he has in mind— whether we like it or not—is based on theoretical magnitudes whose empirical counterparts are definitely not those that Piketty actually takes from the System of National Accounts (SNA) (UN, 2009). In turn, Taylor (2014) criticizes Piketty’s “narrative” on the basis of the underlying theoretical framework (bypassing the above-mentioned “theory-empirics” inconsistency). He then attempts to extend Pasinetti’s (1962) framework, which in his opinion provides a “macroeconomic narrative as unsatisfactory as Piketty’s” (Taylor 2014: 12), since the framework assumes full employment, on the one hand, and a rate of profit that automatically adjusts to guarantee the maintenance of full employment, on the other. In so doing, Taylor attributes to Pasinetti’s framework an objective that is not the one originally envisioned by Pasinetti. In other words, Taylor
An acyltransferase-like gene obtained by differential gene expression profiles of quinolizidine alkaloid-producing and nonproducing cultivars of Lupinus angustifolius

Quinolizidine alkaloids (QAs) are one of the representative groups of plant alkaloids. To isolate genes involved in QA biosynthesis, we performed a differential gene expression analysis by PCR-select subtraction between a QA-producing bitter cultivar and a nonproducing sweet cultivar of Lupinus angustifolius. We obtained 71 and 43 clones specific to the bitter and sweet cultivars, respectively. Among the genes specifically expressed in the bitter cultivar, an acyltransferase-like gene (LaAT: Lupinus angustifolius acyltransferase) showing homology to the BAHD protein family was isolated. LaAT showed the strongest homology to the Arabidopsis thaliana BAHD acyltransferases involved in the formation of conjugated polyamines. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR revealed that LaAT expression was highest in the young leaves but barely detectable in the other organs of the bitter cultivar plant, whereas LaAT expression was undetectable in the sweet cultivar.