Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Image Compression Using Neural Networks

Image compression using Neural Networks by Kunal Rajan Deshmukh Image compression is a well-studied field of Computer Vision. Recently, many neural network based architectures have been proposed for image compression as well as enhancement. These networks are also put to use by frameworks such as end-to-end image compression. In this project, we have explored the improvements that can be made over this framework to achieve better benchmarks in compressing images. Generative Adversarial Networks are used to generate new fake images which are very similar to original images. Single Image Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Networks (SI-SRGAN) can be employed to improve image quality. Our proposed architecture can be divided into four parts : image compression module, arithmetic encoder, arithmetic decoder, image reconstruction module. This architecture is evaluated based on compression rate and the closeness of the reconstructed image to the original image. Structural similarity metrics and peak signal to noise ratio are used to evaluate the image quality. We have also measured the net reduction in file size after compression and compared it with other lossy image compression techniques. We have achieved better results in terms of these metrics compared to legacy and newly proposed image compression algorithms. In particular, an average PSNR of 28.48 and SSIM value of 0.86 is achieved as compared to 28.45 PSNR and 0.81 SSIM value in end to end image compression framework [1].
The taxonomic status of the Tasmanian endemic moss, Scleropodium australe (Brachytheciaceae)

Abstract Scleropodium australe is known from a single population in a suburb of Hobart, Tasmania and is the only southern hemisphere representative in an otherwise north temperate genus. It was originally segregated from S. cespitans based on two quantitative characters, median lamina cell width and relative costa length. Molecular data presented here (ITS, rps4, trnG, psbA2) indicate that S. australe is nested within a well supported clade of S. touretii. Morphological measurements also fail to demonstrate any differences between S. australe and S. touretii. Based on the lack of any molecular or morphological differences between these species and the single known station of the latter species at a ruderal site, S. australe is reduced to synonomy with S. touretii, with the interpretation that the Tasmanian population is introduced from Europe.
RNA Polyadenylation in Prokaryotes and Organelles; Different Tails Tell Different Tales

The addition of poly(A) tails to RNA is a phenomenon common to almost all organisms examined as of today. In eukaryotes, a stable poly(A) tail is added to the 3′ end of most nuclear-encoded mRNAs. This process is important for mRNA stability and translation initiation. In addition, polyadenylation of nuclear-encoded transcripts in yeast was recently reported to promote RNA degradation. In prokaryotes and organelles, RNA molecules are polyadenylated as part of a polyadenylation-dependent RNA degradation mechanism. This process consists sequentially of endonucleolytic cleavage, addition of degradation-inducing poly(A)-rich sequences to these cleavage products, and exonucleolytic degradation. In spinach chloroplasts the latter two steps, polyadenylation and exonucleolytic degradation, are performed by a single phosphorolytic and processive enzyme, polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase), while there is no equivalent to the E. coli poly(A)-polymerase enzyme. This was also found to be the case in cyanobacteria, a prokaryote believed to be related to the evolutionary ancestor of the chloroplast, and also in several other bacteria. No RNA polyadenylation was detected in the halophilic archaea Haloferax volcanii, which lacks the exosome complex, or in yeast mitochondria, which lack PNPase. Unlike other organelles, mammalian mitochondrial transcripts are known to include stable poly(A) tails at their 3′ ends, much like the case of nuclear-encoded mRNA. However, recent data have revealed that in addition to full-length, stably polyadenylated transcripts, nonabundant, truncated, polyadenylated RNA fragments are present in human mitochondria. These results suggest that the polyadenylation-dependent RNA degradation pathway is present in human mitochondria together with the addition of stable poly(A) tails at the mature 3′ end. We describe a possible scenario illustrating the evolution of RNA polyadenylation and its related functions found in bacteria, archaea, organelles, and eukaryotes. Referee: Dr. David Stern, Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.
Technology Transfer Spillover from FDI-A Comprehensive Literature Review

Technology can be transferred between countries through different channels such as international trade, foreign investment and contract transfer. The direct impact of foreign investment on business efficiency has made foreign investment create a positive spillover effect for local enterprises and become the most important international tool for enterprise technology transfer. This research reviews recent literature on the conceptualization, measurement and the mechanism of FDI spillover. It also reviews the factors that affecting the technology transfer spillover from FDI. With the industrial transfer, the pace of global processing industry shifting to Southeast Asian countries or regions is accelerating, and the desire of countries in the region to introduce production technology is very urgent. The implications justify the importance of technology transfer spillover as it benefit from competition of foreign firms as the competitive pressure induces domestic firms to use more efficiently their existing technologies, or search for new ones so that they are able to maintain their market shares.
The Secret Life of Commented-Out Source Code

Source code commenting is a common practice to improve code comprehension in software development. While comments often consist of descriptive natural language, surprisingly, there exists a non-trivial portion of comments that are actually code statements, i.e., commented-out code (CO code), even in well-maintained software systems. Commented-out code practice is rarely studied and often excluded in prior studies on comments due to its irrelevance to natural language. When being openly discussed, CO practice is generally considered a bad practice. However, there is no prior work to assess the nature (prevalence, evolution, motivation, and necessity of utilization) of CO code practice. In this paper, we perform the first study to understand CO code practice. Inspired by prior works in comment analysis, we develop automated solutions to identify CO code and track its evolution in development history. Through analyzing six open-source projects of different sizes and from diverse domains, we find that CO code practice is non-trivial in software development, especially in the early phase of development history, e.g., up to 20% of the commits involve CO code practice. We observe common evolution patterns of CO code and find that developers may uncomment and comment code more frequently than expected, e.g., 10% of the CO code practices have been uncommented at least once. Through a manual analysis, we identify the common reasons that developers adopt CO code practices and reveal maintenance challenges associated with CO code practices.
WING PROFILE INVESTIGATIONS IN THE LOW SPEED WIND TUNNEL OF THE UNIBWM

The experimental environment in the low speed wind tunnel was optimized to perform 2D airfoil polar tests in an open test section. The streamwise axial static pressure gradient in the test section was minimized, given airfoil models were installed in the test section and the lift and drag measurement procedures were optimized. The test setup was validated by the comparison of clean-case airfoil results with reference data from other wind tunnels. The measurement of a profile polar, including model exchange, has been reduced to less than one hour. The obtained setup was implemented in the investigation of the effect of various leading edge modifications on the high lift behavior of two given wind turbine profiles. Leading edge tubercle as well as DLR LEVoG variations were investigated in order to limit the lift production of the airfoils at angles of attack beyond the wind power plant’s operation point. It is shown, that the lift gradient at higher angles of attack can be reduced and additional drag can be kept to a minimum with particular tubercle and LEVoG configurations.
External Economic Shocks and Vulnerability of the West African Economic and Monetary Union

Background: The regional integration, may it be economic integration or monetary union, is considered, since the success of the European Union, as a mean to development and to mitigate the consequences of exposure to globalization. However, in the African context, the capacity of resilience and the vulnerability of these economies against external shocks remain questionable. Objective: This paper aims to analyze the effects of external economic shocks on the economies of West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) which is comprised of West African francophone countries (Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo) and lusophone countries (Bissau Guinea). Method: To achieve this, the Vector Auto Regression technique has been used. We examine the impact of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s GDP the price of agricultural commodities, the price of the crude oil barrel, and aid and development assistance shocks on the economies of the union. Due to the lack of data, Bissau Guinea has been removal from the analysis. The data ar primarily sourced from the World Development Indicators and World Economic Outlook databases respectively from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and cover the period 1980 – 2018. Results: The results show that the WAEMU countries are highly sensitive to the variations of these different variables with the exception of the price of the crude oil barrel. In addition, the impulse responses show that the WAEMU’s economies are permanently affected by these shocks. Conclusion: In terms of economic policy implications, it is essential to strengthen the insurance mechanisms such as intra-trade through the deepening of the regional integration process, responsible budgetary policy, flexibility of the economies, and the economic convergence for the viability of the union.
Composition of Labor Supply and Business Dynamism*

Population aging and the increase in the relative supply of college-educated workers have transformed the labor force in developed economies. How do these secular trends affect the characteristics of firms in the economy? To answer this question, I develop a general equilibrium model in which both workers and firms are heterogeneous. In the model, firms of different sizes rely on different types of workers due to complementarities in production. I estimate these complementarities using linked employer-employee data from Germany. The model predicts that the changes in the labor force composition entail the reallocation of production towards firms with a larger capital stock, which tend to be older and less dynamic. The quantitative results indicate that the demographic trends can account for most of the shift in the size distribution of firms, the falling number of new firms, and the increasing market concentration, observed in the data. The patterns of business dynamism across German industries provide reduced-form empirical support for the model’s predictions.
Countervailing Power, Integration, and Investment under Incomplete Information∗

We provide an incomplete information model to analyze bargaining, countervailing power, integration, and investments. These have been at the forefront of merger decisions. Countervailing power arguments stipulate that horizontal mergers can be socially desirable because they offset bargaining power on the other side of the market. The tradeoff between profit and social surplus with independent private values gives rise to the possibility of social-surplus-increasing countervailing power and socially harmful vertical integration. Moreover, efficient bargaining implies efficient, noncontractible investments; horizontal mergers can harm rivals; bargaining breaks down on the equilibrium path; and countervailing power can align investments with the first-best.
Harvesting impacts on commonly used medicinal tree species (Catha edulis and Rapanea melanophloeos) under different land management regimes in the Mpumalanga Lowveld, South Africa

Harvesting of products from plants in the wild is widespread throughout southern Africa. Particularly important products are plant parts used in traditional medicine. However, the impacts of harvesting practices are rarely quantified, with as yet insufficient generic rules across species and life forms. This limits the predictive ability to monitor and manage the affected populations. This paper examines the harvesting impact on two popular woody medicinal species used throughout sub-Saharan Africa, namely Catha edulis (Vahl) Forssk. ex Endl. (bushman’s tea) and Rapanea melanophloeos (L.) Mez. (Cape beech). In both species, basal diameters, heights, and the number of size classes in the harvested populations were lower than in unharvested. Densities of harvested populations were higher in both species, including densities of young plants, but the frequency of individuals in larger size classes was lower. The populations of both species being harvested for medicinal products appeared to be withstanding the current levels of harvesting, but the population structure of C. edulis populations being harvested for poles on the roadside and near human settlements had been substantially altered. Despite the resilience of the two species to harvesting for medicinal products, loss of habitat or changes in land use pose a threat to a number of the assessed populations.
Financial Fragility in the Covid-19 Crisis: The Case of Investment Funds in Corporate Bond Markets

Abstract Using daily microdata, we document major outflows in corporate-bond funds during the COVID-19 crisis. Large outflows were sustained over weeks and most severe for funds with illiquid assets, vulnerable to fire sales, and exposed to sectors hurt by the crisis. By providing a liquidity backstop for their bond holdings, the Federal Reserve bond purchase program helped to reverse outflows especially for the most fragile funds. In turn, the program had spillover effects on primary market issuance and peer funds. The evidence points to a “bond-fund fragility channel” whereby the Fed liquidity backstop transmits to the real economy via funds.
2006 CCRTS The State of the Art and the State of the Practice

This paper presents some concepts, principles, and techniques for automated testing of real-time reactive software systems based on attributed event grammar (AEG) modeling of the environment in which a system will operate. AEG provides a uniform approach for automatic test generation, execution, and analysis. Quantitative and qualitative assessment of the system comprised of the software under test and its interaction with the environment, can be performed based on statistics gathered during automatic test execution within an environment model.
Rotation, Mulch and Zero Tillage Reduce Weeds in a Long-Term Conservation Agriculture Trial

Weed management is one of the main challenges of conservation agriculture. Although all three components of conservation agriculture (minimal tillage, permanent soil cover and crop diversification) can reduce weed populations, these effects may only become apparent in the medium to long term. This study evaluated weed biomass, density and diversity with and without herbicide control in a long-term trial initiated in 1991 in the Mexican Highlands to evaluate all three components of conservation agriculture. Data were collected in 2004, 2005, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Weed density and biomass were generally lower in conservation agriculture than with conventional tillage. The three components of conservation agriculture significantly reduced weed biomass, which was lower when all three components were applied together. When herbicides were applied, weed biomass in conservation agriculture was 91% lower in maize and 81% lower in wheat than in conventional tillage. Different treatments favored different weed species, but no trend toward increased perennial weeds was observed in conservation agriculture. These data supported claims stating that if adequate weed control is achieved in the initial years, weed populations in conservation agriculture systems are lower than in conventional tillage systems.
The Effect of Education on Health Using the Marginal Treatment Effect Approach

This paper estimates the effect of college education on health satisfaction using data from the German National Education Panel. We use semiparametric estimation methods (the local instrumental variables estimator) to identify marginal treatment effects of education in an environment of essential heterogeneity. The results suggest heterogeneous but mainly positive health effects. JEL Classification: C31, H52, I12, I21
Orthogonalized SGD and Nested Architectures for Anytime Neural Networks

We propose a novel variant of SGD customized for training network architectures that support anytime behavior: such networks produce a series of increasingly accurate outputs over time. Efficient architectural designs for these networks focus on re-using internal state; subnetworks must produce representations relevant for both immediate prediction as well as refinement by subsequent network stages. We consider traditional branched networks as well as a new class of recursively nested networks. Our new optimizer, Orthogonalized SGD, dynamically re-balances task-specific gradients when training a multitask network. In the context of anytime architectures, this optimizer projects gradients from later outputs onto a parameter subspace that does not interfere with those from earlier outputs. Experiments demonstrate that training with Orthogonalized SGD significantly improves generalization accuracy of anytime networks.
Nitrogen recovery from fertilizers and cover crops by maize crop under no-tillage system

Crop rotation associated with the use of cover crops promotes the introduction of crop residues to the soil, with direct and indirect effects on the availability of plant nutrients, especially nitrogen (N). The objectives of this study were to estimate the N utilization from 15 N-urea and cover crop residues (labelled with 15 N) of maize crops grown in succession, and evaluate the effects of the isolated and combined use of cover crops and urea on maize plant height, yield components, and grain yield, grown under a notillage system. Field research was conducted in an Oxisol (Rhodic Haplustox), Cerrado (Savannah) phase. The experimental design was a randomized block with 20 treatments and four replications in a 5x4 factorial scheme. The treatments were four cover crops species: sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea L.), pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp), green velvet bean (Mucuna prurens), and millet (Pennisetum glaucum L.) + spontaneous vegetation (fallow in the off-season), combined with four N rates: 0, 30, 90, and 150 kg ha 1 , applied at the sowing and topdressing stages. The results showed that legume cover crops provided maize grain yields equivalent to the application of 80-108 kg ha -1 N as urea. The urea N utilization by the maize was at an average of 43.5 % of the applied amount. The results indicate that cover crops, particularly legume cover crops, are an important source of N to non-legume cereals. Legumes used as cover crops can replace nitrogen fertilizers of more than 80 kg ha, which is both environmentally and economically viable for corn production.
Characterization of a Factor with Oocyte Maturation Inducing Activity in Spisula

A substance that induces germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) of Spisula oocytes in vitro was isolated from Spisula body fluid (SBF) and ganglion cells by ultrafiltration through PM-lO membrane filter, charcoal extraction, and reversed phase HPLC. Its retention time on HPLC elution is coincident with that of reference serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) creatinine sulfate. The HPLC-purified substance from SBF and nerve ganglion induced GVBD in Spisula oocytes in a dose-dependent manner. 5-HT was identified in Spisula body fluid and ganglion cells by HPLC-electrochemical detection. The present results show that the factor in Spisula body fluid and ganglion cells that induces GVBD in Spisula oocytes in vitro is 5-HT or a closely related compound.
Gas exchange, photochemical efficiency, and yield of Jatropha curcas irrigated with saline water

Jatropha curcas L. is a rustic plant with great potential for energy source. In semi-arid regions, where water scarcity has been one of the major problems, saline water is an alternative source in agriculture, although it causes losses in crop development and yield. This study was developed to evaluate the photochemical efficiency, gas exchange, and yield of Jatropha curcas irrigated with saline water. The experiment was carried out under five levels (L) of water electrical conductivity: L1 = 1.2, L2 = 1.8, L3 = 2.4, L4 = 3.0, and L5 = 3.6 dS m -1 , (calibrated at 25 oC). We conducted physiological assessments such as photochemical efficiency of photosystem II, gas exchange through stomatal conductance, transpiration, CO2 internal concentration and leaf net photosynthesis rate after application of saline water and following prunning. J. curcas production was measured based on the following variables, number of bunches per plant, number of fruits per plant, number of fruits per bunch, weight of shells per plant and weight of seeds per plant. Continuous application of saline water after J. curcas pruning caused a drastic reduction of up to 31.1% in gas exchange (A, gs, E, Ci, and A/Ci). Photochemical efficiency of photosystem II was restricted by salinity at 2.4 dS m -1 level. Increasing electrical conductivity in irrigation water at levels above 1.20 dS m -1 significantly reduced J. curcas production components by up to 77.3%. Irrigation with saline water up to the level 1.20 dS m -1 did not damage gas exchange and fruit production of Jatropha curcas crop.
Comparative Analysis of Liquid based and Conventional Cytology Smears in Fine Needle Aspirates from Breast Lesions

Context: Liquid-based cytology (LBC) is being extensively used for the evaluation of both gynecological and non-gynecological specimens. Suspension of cells in monolayer makes better morphological assessment possible. Along with this, inherent morphological changes such as altered, reduced, or lost background material, fragmented cell clusters, smaller cell size, nucleolar prominence, etc., need to be considered. Aim: Present study was aimed at comparative evaluation of utility of LBC versus conventional smear (CS) in assessing breast lesions and whether it can be used as an alternative to conventional preparation. Settings and Design: Present study was a prospective study in which 75 cases of breast fine-needle aspiration cytology from patients with palpable breast lumps constituted the study group. Material and Methods: The first pass was used for CS and LBC; a second pass was given. The representative CS and LBC smears were compared using several criteria. Statistics: Each feature was scored individually and evaluated statistically using Wilcoxon's signed rank test on the SPSS program. Results: A statistically significant difference was found in informative background and background blood-debris, whereas the difference was not statistically significant in other features such as cellularity, cytoarchitectural pattern, presence of monolayer, and nuclear and cytoplasmic details. Conclusion: LBC is a promising technique in the field of cytology. It has the potential to decrease the number of slides screened per case and decrease the turn-around-time.