Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Strategic analysis of medal markets at the Olympic Winter Games: Introducing an index to analyse the quantitative market potential of sports disciplines

Despite the evidence of nations investing strategically into their elite sport systems to produce Olympic success, there is a lack of knowledge on how national-level decision-makers can employ a strategy to analyse the competitive environment concerning sports contested in the Olympic Winter Games. In this paper, the concept of market potential analysis, which is commonly applied in economics, is proposed as a method to enable these investment decisions to be based on sound evidence. The markets for Olympic awards, i.e. medals (top 3 places) and diplomas (i.e. top 8 places) are compared in alpine skiing, biathlon, cross country, speed skating, freestyle skiing, short track and snowboarding from 1992 to 2018. The most notable changes are identified in cross country (2002), biathlon (2006), freestyle skiing (2014), snowboarding (2006 and 2014) and speed skating (2018). Drawing on strategic management literature analysing the changes in market potential in relation to the market-governing organisations, the strategic evidence of these findings is highlighted by discussing the role of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the respective International Federations. These organisations govern the competition in the Olympic awards’ markets by introducing new events and altering qualification rules. With reference to principles of mainstream economics, decision-makers who understand the underpinning governing mechanisms of the competition at the Olympic Games can exploit this intelligence strategically to develop a sustainable competitive advantage over their rivals.
Epithelial organ shape is generated by patterned actomyosin contractility and maintained by the extracellular matrix

Epithelial sheets play important roles in defining organ architecture during development. Here, we employed an iterative experimental and multi-scale computational modeling approach to decouple direct and indirect effects of actomyosin-generated forces, nuclear positioning, extracellular matrix (ECM), and cell-cell adhesion in shaping Drosophila wing imaginal discs, a powerful system for elucidating general principles of epithelial morphogenesis. Basally generated actomyosin forces are found to regulate apically biased nuclear positioning and are required for generating epithelial bending and cell elongation of the wing disc pouch. Surprisingly, however, short-term pharmacological inhibition of ROCK-driven actomyosin contractility does not impact the maintenance of tissue height or curved shape. In comparison, the relative tautness of the extracellular basement membrane is also patterned between regions of the wing disc. However, computational simulations show that patterning of ECM tautness provides only a minor contribution to modulating tissue shape. Instead, the buildup of a passive ECM pre-strain serves a principle role in shape maintenance. Surprisingly, this is independent from the maintenance of actomyosin contractility. Furthermore, localized apical adhesion between the two cell layers within the wing disc requires ROCK-driven actomyosin activity in the absence of the basal extracellular matrix. This apical adhesion between the two cell layers provides additional mechanical support to help maintain tissue integrity. The combined experimental and computational approach provides general insight into how the subcellular forces are generated and maintained within individual cells to induce tissue curvature and suggests an important design principle of epithelial organogenesis whereby forces generated by actomyosin followed by maintenance as pre-strain within the ECM are interconnected, but functionally separable. Significance statement A major outstanding question in developmental biology is the elucidation of general principles of organ shape formation and maintenance. Here, an iterative experimental and multi-scale computational modeling approach reveals that actomyosin contractility generates the bent profile along the anterior-posterior axis while tension within the ECM is sufficient and necessary for preserving the bent shape even in the absence of continued actomyosin contractility once the shape is generated. The mechanisms tested in this study define the necessary factors for establishing the shape of the wing disc, which later everts to form the adult wing during pupal development. The method can be extended to test novel mechanisms of other epithelial systems that consist of several cellular and ECM layers.
The News sentiment effect on trading behavior: A Cross-industry Analysis

This study examines whether the news sentiment that is inherent in media reports influences the trading behavior of investors and whether it acts as a leading indicator in their decision making. Based on linguistic analysis, we construct marketand industry-level ‘aggregate news sentiment indices’ (ANSIs) on the financial news reports relating to each listed stock on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Our analyses of the relationships between the ANSIs and the trading responses reveal that regardless of whether we are examining a market or industry ANSI, there is a significant and negative relationship between ANSIs and market returns; this is consistent with the overreaction trading behavior viewpoint presented in Barberis, Shleifer and Vishny (1998). Further, the ANSIs could well prove to be a better leading indicator of market and industry returns, particularly in states that are not characterized by extreme pessimism or optimism. We also find spillover effects between industry-level ANSIs and VIX, particularly in sluggish states. A comparison of economic states provides support for the view that the ANSIs are extremely sensitive to macroeconomic monitoring indicators and trading responses, particularly in stable and sluggish states.
Sustainability and Subjective Well-Being: How Students Weigh Dimensions

Sustainability and Subjective Well-Being (SWB) are strongly interrelated domains. The way students view them and prioritize their dimensions should be factored into curricular developments in education for sustainability. Instruments developed to examine sustainability and SWB preferences typically use rating scale items to measure dimensions as separate entities. In contrast, the question format used in this study forces the students to rate variables in relation to each other. The sum of both SWB and sustainability variables was fixed, which means that increasing the weight of a priority automatically meant a decrease in the weight that could be allocated for the remaining elements. Two-block Partial Least Squares (PLS) modelling was used to examine how pre-defined SWB and sustainability dimensions behave when handled within the same model. It was found that those who ordered the three sustainability dimensions as Environment > Society > Economy tended to rank SWB dimensions as (Relations with others, Inner peace) > (Health, Close to nature) > (Good job, Leisure). Our research proved that the use of question formats resembling real-life resource allocation dilemmas and the treatment of SWB and sustainability as one system can yield invaluable information for the educational process.
Using encounter data to improve capture-recapture abundance estimates

Capture-recapture studies are widely used in ecology to estimate population sizes and demographic rates. However, when individuals are hard to capture, encounters may result in failed captures where the identity of an individual is unknown. Such encounters are ignored in traditional capture-recapture analyses. Here we show that failed captures provide lower bounds on population size that can increase the precision of abundance estimates. Analytical results and simulations indicate that encounter data improve abundance estimates when capture probabilities are low, and when there are few repeat surveys. We present a hierarchical Bayesian approach for integrating failed captures and auxiliary encounter data in statistical capture-recapture models. This approach can be integrated with existing capture-recapture models, and may prove particularly useful for hard to capture species in data-limited settings.
IMPACT OF SOLAR AND WIND PRICES ON THE INTEGRATED GLOBAL ELECTRICITY SPOT AND OPTIONS MARKETS: A TIME SERIES ANALYSIS

Following the liberalisation of the global electricity markets, spot and options markets have been established in many countries. Electricity pricing issues, coupled with increased concern regarding global warming and the greenhouse effect, represent the driving factors behind electricity price movements. Australia, Germany, the United States (US) and other countries worldwide have increasingly shifted their focus away from fossil fuels and towards energy generated from renewable sources, including solar and wind power. This paper examines the behaviour of the Australian, German and US electricity markets in terms of the impact of solar and wind pricing on the electricity spot and options markets for the period January 2006 to March 2018. Using a vector autoregression analysis, we examine both the direction of influence and the influence absorption through Granger causality testing, the impulse response function and forecast error variance decompositions. Our findings indicate that the electricity markets in Australia, Germany and the US are interdependent and related with regards to solar and wind price changes, meaning that the investigated electricity markets are influenced by movements in other electricity markets. The findings of this study are important for investors, energy analysts, government organisations and policymakers.
Stigma Towards Mental Health Treatment Among College Students: A Test of an Interactive Online Educational Intervention

Adolescents and young adults have low rates of help-seeking despite high prevalence rates ofmental health problems. College students may not choose to seek help because of thenegative stigmatizing attitudes associated with mental illness. Education about mental illnessand treatment and contact with people with mental health problems may improve negativestigmatization. The purpose of this study was to test the impact of an online interactiveeducation intervention that utilizes avatars who depict individuals suffering from mentalhealth problems in the context of a college environment on reduction of stigmatizingattitudes toward mental illness and help-seeking. Sixty college student participants wererandomly assigned to either an online interactive education intervention that providedinformation on mental health problems via virtual interactions with avatars or to an onlineinteractive education intervention that provided information and simulated interactionsconcerning tobacco use among minors. Participants completed measures of mental healthtreatment-seeking stigma prior to and after completing one of the two online interactiveeducation interventions. Among this sample, the mental health intervention reduced publicstigma and improved attitudes toward seeking help while the control intervention related toincreased self-stigma toward seeking help. These findings suggest that interactive programsregarding mental health on college campuses may reduce public stigmatizing attitudes andencourage help-seeking. Future studies should include longer-term follow-up assessmentsand should include assessments of behavior (e.g., help-seeking, referring for help).
Effect of Annealing Temperature on the Structure and Optical Properties of CdS:Cu Thin Films Prepard By Thermal Vacuum Evaporation

In this study, we are studying the effect of annealing temperature on the structure and the optical properties of CdS:Cu thin films which were prepared by thermal evaporation technique in vacuum with rate deposition (4.1A°/sec) and thickness(=400nm),all these samples have been annealed at different annealing temperatures (RT,373,423 and 473 K). The structural properties of the films have been studied by using X-ray diffraction. The optical measurements indicate that CdS:Cu films have direct optical energy gap (E,""), and it decreases from 2.43 eV to 2.37 eV with the increase of annealing temperatures (R.T — 473)K. The optical constants refractive index (n), extinction coefficient (k),absorption coefficient (a) and dielectric constants (€, and €;) were also studied.
Chapter 9-The Economics of Cultural Transmission and Socialization

This paper presents a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature on cultural transmission and socialization. It has been prepared for the Handbook of Social Economics, edited by Jess Benhabib, Alberto Bisin, and Matt Jackson, to be published by Elsevier Science in 2010. JEL Codes: Z1, D01, D03
Synthesis of CuZn Alloy Films through Electrodeposition

Porous copper current collectors have been shown to be an effective method for reducing dendrite growth in lithium-metal anodes. Thicker and more porous copper films are desirable due to their ability to store more lithium while successfully inhibiting dendrite growth. In order to optimize the synthesis of porous copper films, Cu-Zn (brass) alloys were deposited on a copper foil substrate and electrochemically dealloyed to create porous copper structures. The effects of polyethylene glycol (PEG) in the presence of chloride ions and agitation of the electrolyte on the phase and morphology of the resulting films were investigated. The addition of PEG was found to increase the electrode potential during electrodeposition. Agitation of the electrolyte lead to a substantial decrease in electrode potential and resulted in a thick (~26 μm) and highly porous (~81%) film. Samples with both PEG additive and agitation were then tested under various electrolyte compositions and deposition conditions to optimize the deposition process.
Human action representation and recognition: An approach to histogram od spatiotemporal templates

The motion sequences of human actions have its own discriminating proﬁle that can be represented as a spatiotemporal template like Motion History Image (MHI). A histogram is a popular statistic to present the underlying information in a template. In this paper a histogram oriented action recognition method is presented. In the proposed method, we use the Directional Motion History Images (DMHI), their corresponding Local Binary Pattern (LBP) images and the Motion Energy Image (MEI) as spatiotemporal template. The intensity histogram is then extracted from those images which are concatenated together to form the feature vector for action representation. A linear combination of the histograms taken from DMHIs and LBP images is used in the experiment. We evaluated the performance of the proposed method along with some variants of it using the renowned KTH action dataset and found higher accuracies. The obtained results justify the superiority of the proposed method compared to other approaches for action recognition found in literature.
H-mode pedestal studies in

During the enhanced confinement regime of operation for tokamak plasmas (H-mode) a transport barrier is formed near the separatrix. Sharp gradients of temperature and density are observed in this pedestal of the plasma. Study of the pedestal region is important for understanding the physics of H-mode. This paper presents results of recent experiments on the Alcator C-Mod tokamak aimed at understanding relationships between pedestal parameters and local plasma parameters as well as global confinement. On Alcator C-Mod a set of high resolution diagnostics is installed that measures electron temperature and density profiles in the pedestal region at different poloidal locations along the last closed flux surface. Detailed description of the diagnostics can be found [1,2]. In this paper we will concentrate on the results obtained with the edge Thomson scattering system, which measures Te and ne profiles at the top edge of the plasma with spatial resolution of 1.5 mm and time resolution of 33 msec. This diagnostic allows us to observe formation of the pedestal at the L-H transition and its evolution during controlled plasma parameter scans. Normally, very steep Te and ne H-mode gradients are measured, with pedestal widths as small as 2 mm. Electron pressure profiles are reconstructed using the ne and Te measurements and evolution of the pressure gradient in the pedestal region is analyzed. The measured profiles are parametrized using a tanh [3] function and a database has been constructed that contains pedestal parameters and a set of relevant plasma parameters measured at the Thomson time points. This allows us to study scalings of the pedestal parameters. It was found that both temperature and pressure pedestal height and gradient increase with input power and plasma current. At the same time, no clear scaling of pedestal width with plasma current was observed. The dependence of the pedestal gradient and height on heating power and plasma current may be combined into a Pe ,∇Pe∝ Ws scaling.
Influence of Water Velocity and Vertically-Suspended Structures on Rainbow Trout Rearing Performance

This study evaluated the effects of two water velocities and three types of vertically-suspended environmental enrichment during the rearing of juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss; mean ± SE, initial weight 4 ± 1 g and total length 71 ± 2 mm) in 1.8m diameter circular tanks. The 2 × 3 experimental design used two velocities (12.2 cm·s-1 and 30.5 cm·s-1) and three structural treatments (aluminum rod array, plastic spheres, or no structure). After 116 days, the fish reared without any structure (control) at 30.5 cm·s-1 had significantly lower total tank weight, gain, percent gain, feed conversion ratio, and specific growth rate compared to the other treatments. Similarly, the fish reared with a velocity of 30.5 cm·s-1 without structure were significantly shorter and lighter than those in the other treatments. There was no significant difference in condition factor and relative fin lengths among the treatments. These results indicate that vertically-suspended environmental enrichment may be impacting fish rearing performance by altering tank water velocities.
Interparental Conflict and Emerging Adults’ Psychological Distress: Do Cognitive Appraisals Matter?

Ebeveynler arasi catismaya maruz kalma, beliren yetiskinlikte psikolojik problemler icin onemli bir risk faktorudur. Bu calismada, ebeveynler arasi catisma, bilissel degerlendirmeler ve psikolojik sikinti arasindaki baglantilar incelenmistir. Yaslari 18 ile 27 (ORT = 19.86, SS = 1.54) arasinda degisen toplam 313 beliren yetiskin (228 kadin, %72.8; 85 erkek, %27.2) calismada yer almistir. Katilimcilar, Cocuklarin Evlilik Catismasini Algilamasi Olcegi (CPIC), CPIC’in Tehdit ve Kendini Suclama alt boyutlari ile Kisa Semptom Envanteri’ni (KSE) doldurmuslardir. Arastirma bulgulari, ebeveynler arasi catismanin beliren yetiskinlikte tehdit ve kendini suclama degerlendirmelerini dogrudan etkiledigini gostermistir. Coklu aracilik analizlerinden elde edilen bulgular, tehdit ve kendini suclama algilarinin ebeveynler arasi catisma ve psikolojik sikinti arasindaki iliskide tam aracilik ettigini gostermistir. Baska bir deyisle, arastirmada ebeveynler arasi catismanin artan tehdit ve kendini suclama algilariyla baglantili oldugu; bunun da daha fazla psikolojik sikintiyla iliskilendigi saptanmistir. Arastirma bulgulari, ebeveynler arasi catismaya maruz kalmanin cocukluk ve ergenlik donemlerinin de otesinde hala potansiyel bir risk faktoru oldugunu gostermistir.
Investigating therapies in ependymoma

ABSTRACT Introduction: Ependymomas are a heterogeneous group of primary central nervous system neoplasms with varied clinical characteristics, pathologic appearances, survival outcomes, cytogenetic, gene expression, and epigenetic profiles. The variable outcomes with adjuvant radiotherapy and the meager success of cytotoxic chemotherapies point to a need to develop personalized, targeted therapies. Areas covered: This review provides an overview of clinical, pathologic, radiographic, prognostic, and treatment characteristics of ependymomas, summarizes recent discoveries in gene expression profiling, and future directions for the development of targeted and immunologic therapeutic strategies. Expert opinion: Translating the quickly accumulating molecular data into an improved system of grading, classification, prognostication, and therapeutic development will be necessary to improve patient outcomes.
Clearing the smoke: the science base for tobacco harm reduction--executive summary.

Tobacco smoke is the cause of the most deadly epidemic of modern times. Smoking causes cancer (for example, lung, oral cavity, oesophagus, larynx, pancreas, bladder, kidney), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), myocardial infarction, and stroke. The continuing toll of tobacco use has prompted the search for means of harm reduction for those who cannot or will not stop using tobacco. Numerous products that make implied or explicit claims to reduce the burden of smoking while allowing continued nicotine consumption are now entering the market. This report is concerned with the evaluation of these products. Nearly one quarter of adult Americans—an estimated 47 million people—smoke cigarettes.1 Although this is far lower than the 42% recorded in 1965, the decline in the rates of smoking among adults appears to have levelled off during much of the 1990s.2 In a recent survey, 12.8% of middle school children and 34.8% of high school students reported some form of tobacco use during the month prior to their being interviewed.3 The vast majority of smokers begin tobacco use during adolescence.4 However, 70% of smokers say they want to quit5 and 34% of smokers make an attempt to quit each year. Thus, many but not all tobacco users find it very difficult to quit and continually expose themselves to known toxic agents. For the purposes of this report, a product is harm reducing if it lowers total tobacco related mortality and morbidity even though use of that product may involve continued exposure to tobacco related toxicants. Many different policy strategies may contribute to harm reduction. However, this report focuses on tobacco products that may be less harmful or on pharmaceutical preparations that may be used alone or concomitantly with decreased use of conventional tobacco. The committee does not use the term “safer …
Drop by Drop: Scarcity as the Severance Between Intentions to Save Water and Actual Water-Saving

Water scarcity is an escalating global issue. Since 2015, Cape Town has experienced the worst drought in the city’s recorded history. There is an increasing need to encourage sustainable behavioural changes to conserve available water. Decreasing water demand may be improved by predicting water usage. This study used the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), was used to investigate the social and psychological determinants of Cape Town residents’ intention to adhere to water restrictions during the drought. This study aimed to create a model of prediction for intention to adhere to the daily limit, and to test this model’s predictive utility by comparing water-saving intentions to actual water usage. This was accomplished by creating and distributing a TPB-based questionnaire over two studies. Study 1, an online elicitation study (N = 28), provided insight into Capetonian’s beliefs about their water usage. These beliefs were used to create an 88-item TPB-questionnaire administered in Study 2 (N = 74). Path analysis revealed that attitude and perceived behavioural control significantly predicted intention, but subjective norms did not. Unexpectedly, behaviour was not significantly predicted by intention, but was predicted by self-perceived knowledge of water usage. The model explained 31% of the variance in intention, and 6% of the variance in behaviour. The proposed influence of scarcity on these results were discussed. The study concluded that TPB has minimal predictive utility when applied to water-use behaviour in the context of water scarcity. Future research should consider other methods to identify determinants of water-use behaviour.