Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A General Projection Framework for Constrained Smoothing

There are a wide arrayof smoothing methods available for finding structure in data. A general framework is developed which shows that manyof these can be viewed as a projection of the data, with respect to appropriate norms. The underlying vector space is an unusually large product space, which allows inclusion of a wide range of smoothers in our setup (including manymethods not typicallyconsidered to be projec- tions). We give several applications of this simple geometric interpreta- tion of smoothing. A major payoff is the natural and computationally frugal incorporation of constraints. Our point of view also motivates new estimates and helps understand the finite sample and asymptotic behavior of these estimates.
What really happens to small and medium-sized enterprises in a global economic recession? UK evidence on sales and job dynamics

This article uses UK data to consider how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)1 coped during the recent financial crisis. This is important, as SMEs are major contributors to job creation, but are vulnerable to falling demand. It finds that 4 in 10 SMEs experienced a fall in employment during the recession, and 5 in 10 experienced a fall in sales. Within 12 months of the recession, three-quarters of entrepreneurs had a desire to grow. This suggests that while the immediate effects of recession are severe, entrepreneurs recover quite quickly. Importantly, the analysis found that recessionary growth is hugely concentrated among entrepreneurs with the highest human capital.
The Influence of Service Quality Dimensions , Destination Image and Satisfaction to Tourist Loyalty in Maluku Province Zany

The problem described in this research was to identify which factor influenced the destination loyalty of tourist in Maluku Province, Indonesia. The objective was to identify the factors were proposing a costumer behavior theory included of service quality dimension, satisfaction, loyalty concept and the destination image concept. The research method used in this research was quantitative method. Survey method using questionnaire instrument will be used to obtain the primary data. A total sample of 528 tourists in visiting Maluku Province. The method of data analysis used was Partial Least Square (PLS) with SmartPLS 3.0 software version. This study found that the destination image and the tourist satisfaction had a positive significant effect on destination loyalty. The analysis result shown that based on the value of t-statistic test, and then there were 8 (eight) hypothesis were supported or accepted. While the 4 (four) hypothesis were not supported or rejected. The dimensions of service quality including reliability, empathy and responsiveness gave empirical supporting to the destination image. The destination Image gave a strong significant and positive effect on loyalty destination and provided empirical support to H6. The tourist satisfaction rating gave a significant and positive impact on loyalty destinations and providing empirical support for H7. Index Term: Service quality dimensions, destination image, tourists’ satisfaction and destination loyalty
Rethinking the ‘problem’ of gender and IT schooling: discourses in literature

A review of the international research literature pertaining to gender and information technology (IT) schooling reveals changing ideas about what constitutes a gender problem. Much of the literature is concerned with gender differences in computer uses and interests and perceived disadvantages accruing to females as a result of these differences. This reflects and contributes to a dominant liberal equity discourse. Growing awareness of the limitations of earlier research, the changing nature of IT schooling, contradictions in students’ computer interests and dissatisfaction with simplistic explanations has led, however, to post‐structural rethinking and the emergence of a critical discourse. Assumptions of essential differences and deficit ways of thinking are challenged. Persistent gender differences in IT use are explored in their social complexity and the very notion that there is a gender problem is problematised. This presents a different and ultimately more satisfying way of thinking about the problem of gender and IT schooling.
Water flux estimates from a Belgian Scots pine stand: a comparison of different approaches

Four distinct approaches, that vary markedly in the spatial and tempora! resolution of their measurement and process-level outputs, are used to investigate the daily and seasonal water vapour exchange in a 70-year-old Belgian Scots pine forest. Transpiration, canopy interception, soil evaporation and evapotranspiration are simulated, using a stand-level process model (SECRETS) and a soil water balance model (WAVE). Simulated transpiration was compared with up-scaled sap flow measurements and simulated evapotranspiration to eddy covariance measurements. Reasonable agreement in the tempora) trends and in the annual water balance between the two models was observed, however daily and weekly predictions often divcrged. Most notably, WAVE estimated very low, to no transpiration during late autumn, winter and early spring when incident radiation feil below 50 W m - 2 while SECRETS simulated low (0.1 -0.4 mm day 1 ) fluxes during the same period. Both models exhibited similar daily trends in simulated transpiration when compared with sap flow estimates, although simulations from SECRETS were more closely aligned. In contrast, WAVE over-estimated transpiration during periods of no rainfall and under-estimated transpiration during rainfall. Yearly, total evapotranspiration simulated by the models were similar, i.e. 658 mm (1997) and 632 mm (1998) for WAVE and 567 mm (1997) and 619 mm (1998) for Maximum weekly-average evapotranspiration for WAVE exceeded 5 mm day 1 , while SECRETS never exceeded 4 mm day 1 • Both models, in genera), simulated higher evapotranspiration than that measured with the eddy covariance technique. An impact of the soil water content in the direct relationship between the models and the eddy covariance measurements was found. The results suggest that: ( 1)different model formulations can reproduce similarresul ts depending on the scale at which outputs are resolved, (2) SECRETS estimates of transpiration were well correlated with the empirica) measurements, and (3) neither model fitted favourably to the eddy covariance technique.
RTD for multiphase flow systems

A relatively new concept is presented for evaluation of the fluid age distribution a = a(x,t) within the interior of an apparatus. In the standard RTD approach, the tracer study is performed and the residence time distribution is obtained. In the new approach denoted as SRTD, the fluid age is considered as the field quantity and the governing equation is formulated for its spatio-temporal distribution within the flow domain. There are only few studies devoted to this alternative approach, which typically concern only the single-phase flow systems. In this contribution we investigate its applicability also to multiphase systems. In the case of a bubble column, both the RTD and SRTD concepts are employed and discussed. The results are calculated numerically and compared with the experimental
Diversity of firing patterns in a two-compartment model neuron: using internal time delay as an independent variable

Firing properties of single neurons in the nervous system have been recognized to be determined by their intrinsic ion channel dynamics and extrinsic synaptic inputs. Previous studies have suggested that dendritic structures exhibit significant roles in the modulation of somatic firing behavior in neurons. Following these studies, we show that finite information transmission delay between dendrite and soma can also influence the somatic firings in neurons. Our investigation is based on a two-compartment model which can approximately reproduce the firing activity of cortical pyramidal neurons. The obtained simulation results indicate that under subthreshold stimulus, spontaneous fast spiking activity is induced by large values of time delay, while for suprathreshold stimulus, regular bursting, chaotic firing and fast spiking can be observed under different time delays. More importantly, the transition mode between these diverse firing patterns with the variation of delay shows a period-doubling phenomenon under certain stimulus intensity. Consequently, our model results can not only illustrate the influential roles of internal time delay in the generation of a diversity of neuronal firing patterns, but also provide us with frameworks for investigating the impacts of internal time delay on the firing properties of many other neurons in the nervous system.
The effect of mineral adsorbent in calf diet colostrum on the levels of serum immunoglobulin G, protein and glucose

The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of added natural mineral adsorbent zeolite (clinoptylolite) on the degree of absorption of immunoglobulin G and on glucose and protein concentration in the blood of calves during the neonatal period. Sixty calves were randomly divided in to four groups (15 calves per group). The quality and timing of colostrum feeding was as follows: group I was fed only with 1.5 L of colostrum at 2nd, 12th, 24th and 36th hour after birth; group II was fed with 1.5 L of colostrum with the mineral adsorbent added at a 5% concentration in the same time intervals; group III was fed with 1.5 L of colostrum together with the mineral adsorbent added at a 5% concentration, but at 2nd and 12 hour after birth it was fed with the first colostrum, and 24 and 36 hours after birth it was fed with the second colostrum. Group IV of calves was fed the same way as the third one only without the addition of the mineral adsorbent. Mean serum concentration of IgG was 15.14±7.43; 22.22±8.15; 23.65±9.93; 20.81±4.19 g/L in groups I to IV respectively at 6h of age. IgG concentration in the sera of all groups were 29.10±15.25; 45.46±13.45; 50.72±21.57; 41.60±15.42 g/L respectively at 16h after birth. At 30 hours of age, concentration of IgG was 33.29±14.70; 47.05±12.38; 55.00±19.71; 51.59±13.82 g/L in groups I to IV respectively. IgG concentration in the sera of all groups were 29.82±12.69; 44.10±13.50; 51.88±20.14; 47.68±13.18 g/L respectively at 40 hours after birth. For the calves which were fed with the full colostrum without and with the addition of the mineral adsorbent (Group I and II) the statistical significance of the difference in the concentration of IgG was determined during all the tested intervals. Concentration of IgG in the sera of group II calves (fed colostrum with zeolite added) was approximately 30% higher than in the group I. The statistical significance of the difference in levels of IgG between group I and groups III an IV was determined during all tested intervals, also. Concentration of IgG in the sera of group III calves was 40% higher than in group I. Acta Veterinaria (Beograd), Vol. 57, No. 2-3, 169-180, 2007. Results suggest that calves should receive feedings of high quality colostrum with added mineral adsorbent in order to maximize colostral IgG absorption. Determining the proteinemia in the neonatal period of calves is a reliable indicator of the impact of the mineral adsorbent on the degree of absorption of colostral IgG. The concentration of glucose for all the tested groups increased significantly with the increase of the quantity of ingested colostrum, with no evident influence of the added mineral adsorbent.
Hades experiments: investigation of hadron in-medium properties

Hadron modifications in nuclear matter are discussed in connection to chiral symmetry restoration and/or hadronic many body effects. Experiments with photon, proton and heavy ion beams are used to probe properties of hadrons embedded in nuclear matter at different temperatures and densities. Most of the information has been gathered for the light vector mesons ρ ω and ø. HADES is a second generation experiment operating at GSI with the main aim to study in-medium modifications by means of dielectron production at the SIS18/Bevelac energy range. Large acceptance and excellent particle identification capabilities allows also for measurements of strangeness production. These abilities combined with the variety of beams provided by the SIS18 allow for a characterization of properties of the dense baryonic matter properties created in heavy ion collisions at these energies. A review of recent experimental results obtained by HADES is presented, with main emphasis on hadron properties in nuclear matter.
Air Exposure Improvement of Optical Properties of Hydrogenated Nanostructured Silicon Thin Films for Optoelectronic Application

Silicon is the desired material, because silicon optoelectronics will open the door to faster data transfer and higher integration densities at very low cost. Silicon microphotonics has boomed these last years. In addition, silicon, the most important elemental semiconductor, crystallizes in the diamond structure. The diamond lattice consists of two interpenetrating face centered cubic Bravais lattices displaced along the body diagonal of the cubic cell by one quarter of the length of the diagonal. Nowadays, hydrogenated nanostructured silicon with grains in nanometer size has attracted more attention in optoelectronic and microelectronic devices for its superior properties (Kanicki, 1991, 1992; Canham , 1990 ; Lin et al., 2006, Funde et al., 2008, Cheng et al., 2008). Moreover, great efforts have been devoted to photoluminescence of siliconbased materials for developing integrated optoelectronics with the standard silicon verylarge-scale integration technology (Canham, 1990). For example, to embed the nanometersized silicon within an insulating host will enhance the quantum confinement effect, which spreads the band gap of silicon for photoluminescence emission (Brongersma et al., 1998). During the last few years, various methods were proposed to embed nanometersized silicon, such as implantation of silicon into silicon dioxide (Brongersma et al., 1998), Si/SiO2 superlattice structure (Photopoulos et al., 2000; Benyoucef, & Kuball, 2001), thermaloxidized nanocrystalline silicon (Jeon et al., 2005). At the same time, these techniques suffer from complicated and high temperature process, thus unsuitable for developing low cost array or flexible optoelectronic nanocrystalline silicon devices. Nanocrystalline silicon has been synthesized by several techniques such as microwave or laser induced decomposition of silane (SiH4) like precursors (Takagi et al. 1990; Ehbrecht et al., 1995), pulsed-laser deposition of silicon (Werwa et al., 1994), low pressure chemical vapor deposition (Nakajima et al., 1996), electrochemical etching of silicon wafers (Canham , 1990; Belomoin et al., 2002), ion implantation of Si+ (Iwayama et al., 1994), cosputtering of silicon and silicon dioxide (Zhang et al., 1995), and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (Inokuma et al., 1998).
The effect of test-anxiety on memory among Iranian high school students

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of test-anxiety on memory. The paper is based on a study, which was carried out among adolescents in Iran. The respondents of the study were 400 high school students (200 males and 200 females) in the age range of 15-19 years old. Instruments used for data collection were Test-Anxiety Inventory (25 items) and Wechsler Memory Scale –3rd Edition (WMS-III). The finding showed that test-anxiety and memory were significantly correlated, (r=-0.12, Pi 0.04). Thus, it is recommended that in enhancing academic achievement and mental health in school setting, support strategies such as educational guidance and counseling, teaching life skill programs and psychotherapy should be promoted. Limitation of this study was that this study is limited to only students aged 15-19 years in public school and should not be generalized to the other private schools and to adolescents or young adult population.
Multi Carrier Modulation Schemes for Future Wireless Networks-A Review

Multicarrier modulation is need of today’s Wireless communication networks. Various multicarrier modulation schemes have been developed in the past few years orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), Filter bank multicarrier modulation (FBMC) and Universal filtered multicarrier (UFMC) are some of them. These techniques provide numerous advantages like multiple user scheduling, robustness against multipath propagation, high quality of service etc. One of the major drawbacks of MCM is higher PAPR and a number of techniques such as PTS, SLM, TR, Companding, Clipping and Filtering have been developed for reduction of PAPR. In this paper we have tried to gather the contribution made by various researchers for PAPR reduction in Multi Carrier Modulation.
Neural Circuits Mediating Voluntary and Involuntary Attention

Spatial attention is the capacity to prioritize part of the environment for processing over other parts. It can be employed in an internally guided manner, advancing current behavioral goals (i.e., voluntary spatial attention), or it can be captured by salient stimuli in the environment (i.e., involuntary attention). This thesis presents a series of studies investigating neural indices of voluntary and involuntary attention as well as aspects of neural circuits related to spatial attention. The first study used electroencephalography (EEG) to provide evidence that sustained spatial attention on a location generates increased coupling between the hemispheres and acceleration of interhemispheric communication. In the second study, EEG was used to measure indices of voluntary and involuntary attention. Using identical stimulus conditions in a spatial cueing paradigm, we found a physiological marker for voluntary attention that is not present for involuntary attention. In the final study we utilized fMRI coherency to measure network dynamics mediating the two types of attention. We found that voluntary attention acts to reduce coupling between regions engaged in spatial attention. In addition we find a hemispheric asymmetry in degrees of coupling such that both types of attention produce greater coupling in the right hemisphere compared to the left hemisphere. Together these studies developed indices of voluntary and involuntary attention and begin to describe the physiological mechanisms that mediate attention.
Evaluation of the Inflammatory Reaction in Calves with Acute Ruminal

The present study was carried out to evaluate the inflammatory response during acute ruminal drinking in milkfed calves and to describe the correlation between production of acute phase cytokines and the occurrence of depression in this clinical condition. For this purpose, twenty calves with acute ruminal drinking as well as ten clinically normal calves were included in the study. Blood and ruminal fluid samples were collected from all examined calves. The blood samples were used to obtain a blood gas profile and for estimation of selected acute phase proteins and pro-inflammatory cytokines. A depression score was adopted to emphasize the relationship between the severity of the clinical signs and levels of acute phase cytokines. It was found that interleukin-1beta; interleukin-6, interferon gamma, c reactive protein, haptoglobin, and fibrinogen were significantly higher in diseased calves compared to the control group. There was also a positive correlation between the depression score and the examined acute phase cytokines. Our findings suggest that the acidity of the rumen Leads to inflammation of papillae with subsequent distinct inflammatory reaction. It seems that the pro-inflammatory cytokines play a role in the pathogenesis of acute ruminal drinking in milk-fed calves.
A Hodge type decomposition for spinor valued forms

- In this paper we define an action of the Lie algebra sl (2, R) on the space of spinor valued exterior forms A 0 6' associated to a euclidean vector space (V, g). This action commutes with the natural action of Pin (V, g) and we obtain a decomposition of A 0 5' in terms of primitive elements analogous to the classical Hodge-Lefschetz pointwise decomposition of the exterior algebra of a Kahler manifold. This gives rise to Howe correspondences for the pair (Pin (V), sl (2, R)) and Howe correspondences for the pair (Spin (V), sl (2, R)) are also obtained. We prove some positivity results in this context, which are analogous to the classical, infinitesimal Hodge-Riemann bilinear relations.
High- l satellite states in the threshold photoelectron spectrum of argon

An interpretation is given of the threshold photoelectron spectrum of Ar between the and double-ionization thresholds. In this region the observed spectrum is less cluttered than below the thresholds and the interpretation is more straightforward. One of the characteristic features of the spectrum is the excitation to Rydberg orbitals with high angular momentum l in agreement with the Wannier picture as first discussed by Fano in 1974.
The R ole of Choice and Control in Women's Childbirth Experiences

The current study seeks to understand the role of choice and control in both planning and giving birth. This study explores three research questions: 1) What are the key influences on women's birth plan decisions? 2) How do changes to a woman's initial birth plan impact her overall birth experience? 3) What is the role of choice and control in women's childbirth experiences? Narrative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 16 women who had given birth in Waterloo Region within the two years preceding data collection. The findings of this study cover five categories. The first category is the influences on women's planning process (e.g. family, care provider, books, prenatal classes). The second category is the impact that changes to a woman's initial birth plan have on her birth experience and this includes a discussion of transfers of care, pain management and medical intervention, and hospital stays. The third category is the role of choice and control in women's childbirth experiences and in this section the topics discussed include pain management techniques and care provider support. Following this, there is a summary of women's overall satisfaction with their experience. Finally, the fifth category of findings describes women's experiences with breastfeeding support after the birth of their children. A conceptual framework of the role of choice and control in women's birth experiences is proposed that contains three aspects: informed choice, flexibility and support. Running Head: CHOICE & CONTROL IN CHILDBIRTH iv
NO x lifetimes and emissions of cities and power plants in polluted background estimated by satellite observations

Abstract. We present a new method to quantify NOx emissions and corresponding atmospheric lifetimes from OMI NO2 observations together with ECMWF wind fields without further model input for sources located in a polluted background. NO2 patterns under calm wind conditions are used as proxy for the spatial patterns of NOx emissions, and the effective atmospheric NOx lifetime is determined from the change of spatial patterns measured at larger wind speeds. Emissions are subsequently derived from the NO2 mass above the background, integrated around the source of interest. Lifetimes and emissions are estimated for 17 power plants and 53 cities located in non-mountainous regions across China and the USA. The derived lifetimes for the ozone season (May–September) are 3.8 ± 1.0 h (mean ± standard deviation) with a range of 1.8 to 7.5 h. The derived NOx emissions show generally good agreement with bottom-up inventories for power plants and cities. Regional inventory shows better agreement with top-down estimates for Chinese cities compared to global inventory, most likely due to different downscaling approaches adopted in the two inventories.