Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Global Supply Chain Pressures, International Trade, and Inflation

We study the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Euro Area inflation and how it compares to the experiences of other countries, such as the United States, over the two-year period 2020-21. Our model-based calibration exercises deliver four key results: 1) Compositional effects – the switch from services to goods consumption – are amplified through global input-output linkages, affecting both trade and inflation. 2) Inflation can be higher under sector-specific labor shortages relative to a scenario with no such supply shocks. 3) Foreign shocks and global supply chain bottlenecks played an outsized role relative to domestic aggregate demand shocks in explaining Euro Area inflation over 2020-21. 4) International trade did not respond to changes in GDP as strongly as it did during the 2008-09 crisis despite strong demand for goods. These lower trade elasticities in part reflect supply chain bottlenecks. These four results imply that policies aimed at stimulating aggregate demand would not have produced as high an inflation as the one observed in the data without the negative sectoral supply shocks. ∗Prepared for the European Central Bank Forum on Central Banking, 2022. We thank David Baqaee, Gabriel Felbermayr, and participants of the European Central Bank Forum for their comments. We thank Ruth Cesar-Heymann for excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Banks of New York or any other person affiliated with the Federal Reserve System. E-mail: juliandigiovanni@gmail.com, kalemli@umd.edu, asilvub@umd.edu, muhammed yildirim@hks.harvard. edu.
Fabrication of macrocrack-free thick chromium duplex plating for remanufacturing applications

The remanufacturing process of a hydraulic cylinder rod becomes a challenging prospect in the industrial sector producing heavy equipment. That is because remanufactured components can have the same product quality as new components with a more economical price. Hard chromium electrodeposition is a well-known technique to provide a protective coating for the cylinder rod so that it has favorable wear and corrosion resistance properties. Associated with remanufacturing applications, the used chromium plating covering the cylinder rod should be removed first before applying the new chromium one. Whereas the removal process often slightly consumes the base metal and fresh thicker chromium should be deposited in order to preserve its original diameter. The main problem is that the thick chromium may experience macrocrack after the baking process at 200 °C. Hence, the observation of as-plated and as-baked thick and hard chromium deposit properties is the novelty of this research. In this work, the thick and hard chromium plating over a flat carbon steel substrate was produced by the electrodeposition method. A conventional single-layer chromium deposit with a plating current density greater than 40 A/dm2 shows macrocracks after the baking process at 200 °C for an hour. For the chromium duplex plating composed of two Cr layers, the maximum thickness of the deposit was 261.0±8.5 microns, and the macrocrack was observed. Meanwhile, the as-baked duplex chromium plating composed of a polished Cr-C layer and a Cr layer has a microcrack density of 337±8 cracks/cm and hardness of 924.8±22.2 HV0.3 without macrocracks. EPMA characterization confirmed the presence of a carbon element in the Cr-C layer, and it is presumed due to carbon co-deposition from formic acid additives.
Building survey forms for heterogeneous urban areas in seismically hazardous zones. Application to the historical center of Valparaíso, Chile

ABSTRACT Building survey is an essential data-collection procedure to feed large-scale seismic vulnerability assessment. The available strategies usually consider survey forms to gather information about the urban buildings. The application of the available survey forms poses important challenges for the case of the heterogeneous urban centers including different structural typologies. This work proposes four specific survey forms for traditional structural typologies constructed with masonry, reinforced concrete, mixed steel-reinforced concrete, and timber. The proposed forms request essential information on the parameters necessary for seismic vulnerability assessment, by evaluating the lateral-load resistant system, regularity, condition of conservation, and existing damages. The survey forms were applied to the study of 111 buildings of the historical center of Valparaíso, Chile. The proposed methodology was complemented with the use of Geographic Information Systems to obtain a complete database with the structural characterization of the most representative typologies for future works of large-scale seismic vulnerability assessment.
Effects of different combinations of text lightness and background colour on the visual comfort, recognition and preference for packaging labels

Theoretically, the greater the contrast between the colour lightness of the foreground and background, the more helpful it is to recognition, but is the same true for visual comfort and preference on package labels? To more deeply investigate the current status of design, a survey was conducted on the text lightness and background colour of existing five types of packaging. Then performing an experiment that used two independent variables and their levels: background colours (n=18) and foreground text lightness (n=4) to measure dependent variables: Comfort, Recognition and Preference. The data is analysed using repeated measures and correlation coefficients. The results of the study found that Comfort, Recognition, and Preference are all affected by the three colour elements of colousr difference, lightness difference and sum of lightness. In terms of Recognition, the larger the lightness difference, the better. The foreground lightness is L *=91 (white)> L *= 84> L * =74> L *=65. For both Comfort and Preference, medium lightness difference is perceived as better; the text lightness order is L *=84> L *=91(white)> L *=74> L *=65. When the lightness difference between the background and foreground is too large or too close, it will decrease the degree of visual comfort, and it is also less preferred. These results are consistent with past research. Both Comfort and Preference are highly correlated with Recognition. Grey and black backgrounds with text of different lightness levels have no significant difference for Comfort or Preference. In terms of Recognition, L *=91 (white) text on black background is better than on grey background. There is no significant difference between older and younger groups in regard to Comfort, Recognition or Preference.
Topology Optimization of Wave Barriers for Mitigation of Vertical Component of Seismic Ground Motions

ABSTRACT Vertical vibration of structures due to strong near-field earthquakes could culminate in catastrophic consequences. In this article, the optimum patterns of two types of wave barriers with different geometry configurations, buried in the soil domain, are obtained in order to reduce the vertical acceleration of the top of a circular foundation placed on the soil surface. In order to look into the influence of various soil deposits, six soil deposits with diverse material properties and bedrock depths are examined. The topology optimization procedure for finding the optimum position of the wave barriers has been conducted using coupled finite element-genetic algorithm methodology. First, the optimum layouts of the wave barriers are explored in the frequency domain, and then the efficacy of the resulted patterns has been investigated in the time domain by imposing three time history ground motions with various frequency contents at the base of the soil deposit. The results demonstrate that the optimum patterns of the stiff wave barriers could mitigate the foundation peak vertical acceleration as much as 65%. Moreover, three different structures, three-, nine- and twenty-story buildings, are chosen to examine the influence of the obtained optimized medium for the attenuation of the vertical vibration. It is deduced that by inserting the optimized layouts of wave barriers in the ground, vertical acceleration of the roof and axial force of the interior columns could be reduced to the extent of 33–86% and 21–93%, respectively. In the last part of the study, the effects of WBs on reduction of vibrations inducing by both shear and compressional waves are investigated.
Evaluating partial and simultaneous effects of logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, and intrapersonal intelligence on prospective primary teachers’ problem-solving

Problem-solving is the heart of mathematics learning that can be influenced by intelligence. Logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, and intrapersonal intelligence have possible effects on problem-solving. This ex post facto quantitative research aims to evaluate the effect of the three intelligence on the ability of prospective primary teachers (PPTs) to solve mathematical problems partially and simultaneously. The research sample (n=207) was selected through proportional stratified random sampling using the Slovin formula. Data were collected through a test and questionnaire that had been tested for content and construct validity as well as construct and composite reliability. Data prerequisite tests include tests for normality, linearity, multicollinearity, and heteroscedasticity. Hypothesis testing is done through a multiple regression test. The results show that logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, and intrapersonal intelligence simultaneously have a significant effect on PPTs’ mathematical problem-solving, with a large effect of 30.3%. Partially, intrapersonal intelligence does not have a significant effect on problem-solving ability.
DPGEN: Differentially Private Generative Energy-Guided Network for Natural Image Synthesis

Despite an increased demand for valuable data, the privacy concerns associated with sensitive datasets present a barrier to data sharing. One may use differentially private generative models to generate synthetic data. Unfortunately, generators are typically restricted to generating images of low-resolutions due to the limitation of noisy gradients. Here, we propose DPGEN, a network model designed to synthesize high-resolution natural images while satisfying differential privacy. In particular, we propose an energy-guided network trained on sanitized data to indicate the direction of the true data distribution via Langevin Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling method. In contrast to the state-of-the-art methods that can process only low-resolution images (e.g., MNIST and Fashion-MNIST), DPGEN can generate differentially private synthetic images with resolutions up to $128\times 128$ with superior visual quality and data utility. Our code is available at https://github.com/chiamuyu/DPGEN
Infection Improves Survival during Influenza Markedly Pulmonary Immune Pathology and CCR2-Antagonist Prophylaxis Reduces

Infection with inﬂuenza virus induces severe pulmonary immune pathology that leads to substantial human mortality. Although antiviral therapy is effective in preventing infection, no current therapy can prevent or treat inﬂuenza-induced lung injury. Previously, we reported that inﬂuenza-induced pulmonary immune pathology is mediated by inﬂammatory monocytes trafﬁcking to virus-infected lungs via CCR2 and that inﬂuenza-induced morbidity and mortality are reduced in CCR2-deﬁcient mice. In this study, we evaluated the effect of pharmacologically blocking CCR2 with a small molecule inhibitor (PF-04178903) on the entry of monocytes into lungs and subsequent morbidity and mortality in inﬂuenza-infected mice. Subcutaneous injection of mice with PF-04178903 was initiated 1 d prior to infection with inﬂuenza strain H1N1A/Puerto Rico/8/34. Compared with vehicle controls, PF-04178903–treated mice demonstrated a marked reduction in mortality (75 versus 0%) and had signiﬁcant reductions in weight loss and hypothermia during subsequent inﬂuenza infection. Drug-treated mice also displayed signiﬁcant reductions in bronchoalveolar lavage ﬂuid total protein, albumin, and lactose dehydrogenase activity. Administration of PF-04178903 did not alter viral titers, severity of secondary bacteria infections ( Streptococcus pneumoniae ), or levels of anti-inﬂuenza–neutralizing Abs. Drug-treated mice displayed an increase in inﬂuenza nucleoprotein-speciﬁc cytotoxic T cell activity. Our results suggest that CCR2 antagonists may represent an effective prophylaxis against inﬂuenza-induced pulmonary immune pathology. The Journal of Immunology , 2011, 186: 508–515.
An Analysis of Success Plans and Performance Measures for Rural Transit Systems in North Carolina

Performance measurement and funding allocation based on these measurements are becoming increasingly popular in public transportation. Understanding what is important to transit systems is critical to properly assess them on their operational and administrative performance. The research goals were to determine how rural transit systems in North Carolina define success, what performance metrics the systems select for themselves, and why they selected those metrics. Each transit system was required by the North Carolina Department of Transportation to create a Success Plan for themselves that consisted of a mission statement, vision statement, values, and a scorecard that contained performance metrics. The analysis of these Success Plans shows that rural transit systems broadly define their values based on customer service, safety, and reliability. However, aside from safety, the specific metrics that the systems use for evaluating their performance are not well connected to these values. This lack of internal consistency within the Success Plans means that rural transit systems are not selecting performance metrics that complement their stated goals. This lack of internal consistency could have many causes and interviews were conducted with public transit administrators in North Carolina to try and understand the causes. From these interviews, it was determined that the lack of internal consistency in the plans could be partially attributed to the following: (1) system administrators were not aware of the importance of internally consistent plans; (2) system administrators had difficulty creating metrics; and (3) system administrators included metrics that they felt the state wanted to see.
Hyper-Heuristics for Personnel Scheduling Domains

In real-life applications problems can frequently change or require small adaptations. Manually creating and tuning algorithms for different problem domains or different versions of a problem can be cumbersome and time-consuming. In this paper we consider several important problems with high practical relevance, which are Bus Driver Scheduling, Rotating Workforce Scheduling, and Minimum Shift Design. Instead of designing very specific solution methods, we propose to use the more general approach based on hyper-heuristics which take a set of simpler low-level heuristics and combine them to automatically create a fitting heuristic for the problem at hand. This paper presents a major study on applying hyper-heuristics to these domains, which contributes in three different ways: First, it defines new low-level heuristics for these scheduling domains, allowing to apply hyper-heuristics to them for the first time. Second, it provides a comparison of several state-of-the-art hyper-heuristics on those domains. Third, new best solutions for several instances of the different problem domains are found. These results show that hyper-heuristics are able to perform well even on very complex practical problem domains in the area of scheduling and, while being more general and requiring less problem-specific adaptation, can in several cases compete with specialized algorithms for the specific problems. These results help to improve industrial systems in use for solving different scheduling scenarios by allowing faster and easier adaptation to new problem variants.
Mining Biomedical Literature to Discover Natural Cure for Recurrent Disease

The advances in digital data collection and storage technology allows the storage of a huge amount of medical publications in MEDLINE. This database contains more than 25 million references to journal articles and abstracts in life sciences and biomedicine. This research work builds on Swanson use of mathematical association between A and C concepts/terms through a list of B concept/terms retrieved from large medical literature databases that contain either A&B or B&C terms links A to C. Swanson discovered evidence that fish oil (A) may cure vessel blood disorder (C) and that magnesium (A) may be effective against migraine headache (C), which were clinically proven two years later. We present a cooccurrence mining algorithm and an A&C pre-defined domain Knowledge Base (containing for instance Garlic Composition and Blood pressure causes) to filter and reduce the exponential number of shared B terms retrieved from MEDLINE articles using Swanson’s Arrowsmith machine. The reduced number of relevant B terms makes it easier to build scientific evidence to validate publicly known remedies for recurrent diseases for instance establishing whether an important association exists between garlic and its impact on blood pressure.
Determinants of Labor Productivity in the Artificial Eyelashes Industry

This research aims to analyze the labor productivity in the artificial eyelash industry at PT. Royal Korindah in Purbalingga Regency based on the factors that affect. The variables used are labor productivity, education, wages, age, and work experience. The research method used in this research is Multiple Linear Regression Analysis using Eviews9 data processing program. This research used primary data and secondary data. Primary data obtained by the method of interviewing a sample of 100 people labor in the production division at PT. Royal Korindah. Secondary data obtained in the form of publications from various sources. The results showed that education, wages, age, and work experience simultaneously had a positive and significant effect. The factors of education, wages and age have a positive and partially significant effect on labor productivity at PT. Royal Korindah in Purbalingga Regency. In partialy work experience does not have a significant effect on labor productivity at PT. Royal Korindah in Purbalingga Regency.
Acceptance and use of mobile banking: an application of UTAUT2

PurposeMobile banking (m-banking) can be defined as a service offered by a bank or any other financial institution that allows the customers of such establishments to carry out a variety of banking operations via a mobile device, such as a mobile phone, tablet or personal digital assistant. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that influence customers to adopt and subsequently use m-banking services in Ghana using the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2) model with age, educational level, user experience and gender as moderators.Design/methodology/approachUsing questionnaire survey, the study sampled 300 users of m-banking services in Ghana as respondents. The primary data collected were analyzed using SmartPLS software.FindingsFindings of the study indicate that Habit, Price Value and Trust are the main factors influencing adoption and use of m-banking in Ghana. Individual differences of gender, age, educational level and user experience responded differently as they moderate the relationship between UTAUT2 constructs and use bahaviour. The applicability of UTAUT2 model was confirmed in the context of the research.Practical implicationsM-banking is a new phenomenon in Ghana’s financial industry, thus it is imperative to understanding the customer adoption behavior. The outcome will aid financial institutions to develop strategies that will sustain the interest of consumers to embrace m-banking.Originality/valueThis paper is among the first ever known attempts to examine m-banking adoption in Ghana using UTAUT2 model.
Automatic generation of feasible mining pushbacks for open pit strategic planning

mine life is called long-term planning or strategic mine planning. It involves creating mine designs and schedules on a strategic scale, and provides a financial vision for a project as well as an engineering guidance for short-term production. One of the tasks of strategic planning is to design pushbacks, also referred as cutbacks, periods, or stages (Hustrulid and Kuchta, 1995; Whittle, 2011). Pushbacks (Figure 1) are essentially a series of manageable exploitation phases for an open pit mine. A pushback is ideally composed of a unique, spatially contiguous volume that can be mined with available mining equipment and that meets practical geometric mining constraints. A pushback is typically excavated in a continuous period of one to two years, and the extracted material needs to be able to feed the requirement of processing plants. Sometimes, if mining capacity is available, multiple pushbacks are mined concurrently, to produce sufficient ore to meet production schedules. Practical considerations result in two categories of constraints on pushback design: (i) geometric constraints; space is required for haul road design and machine access, and geotechnically controlled slope angles must be honoured for safety, and (ii) quality and overall size constraints on the content of each pushback to meet production targets, required blends and mill processing capacity etc. Recent literature has primarily focussed on the second category of constraints. Important, but commonly neglected, geometric constraints include minimum mining width, continuity and smoothness. The minimum mining width depends on the mining method and the selected equipment. Smoothness and continuity are critical (Hustrulid and Kuchta, 1995) for facilitating mining operations, specifically by reducing costly movement of equipment and fostering the design of even low-gradient access ramps with the least possible number of turns. Automated pushback design methodologies that implement these constraints are rarely reported in the public domain. This paper seeks to fill this gap. Many publications on pushback generation emphasize maximization of NPV under resource constraints, with little attention paid to geometric considerations (Consuegra and Dimitrakopoulos, 2010; Goodfellow and Dimitrakopoulos, 2013; Meagher, Dimitrakopoulos, and Vida, 2015). Crucial operational parameters such as mining width, pit smoothness, and continuity have been neglected, resulting in impractical pushbacks. Designs typically include narrow benches and Automatic generation of feasible mining pushbacks for open pit strategic planning