Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Distance and Kernel Measures of Conditional Dependence

Measuring conditional dependence is one of the important tasks in statistical inference and is fundamental in causal discovery, feature selection, dimensionality reduction, Bayesian network learning, and others. In this work, we explore the connection between conditional dependence measures induced by distances on a metric space and reproducing kernels associated with a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). For certain distance and kernel pairs , we show the distance-based conditional dependence measures to be equivalent to that of kernel-based measures. On the other hand, we also show that some popular kernel conditional dependence measures based on the Hilbert-Schmidt norm of a certain cross-conditional covariance operator, do not have a simple distance representation, except in some limiting cases.
SME Failures under Large Liquidity Shocks: An Application to the COVID-19 Crisis

We study the effects of financial frictions on firm exit when firms face large liquidity shocks. We develop a simple model of firm cost-minimization that introduces a financial friction that limits firms’ borrowing capacity to smooth temporary shocks to liquidity. In this framework, firm exit arises from the interaction between this financial friction and fluctuations in cash flow due to aggregate and sectoral changes in demand conditions, as well as more traditional shocks to productivity. To evaluate the implications of our model, we use firm level data on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in 11 European countries. We confirm that our framework is consistent with official failure rates in 2017–19, a period characterized by standard business cycle fluctuations in demand. To capture a large liquidity shock, we apply our framework to the COVID-19 crisis. We find that, absent government support, SME failure rates would have increased by 6.01 percentage points, putting 3.1 percent of employment at risk. Our results are consistent with the premise that financial frictions lead to inefficient exit as, without government support, the firms failing due to COVID have similar productivity and past growth to firms that survive COVID. JEL classification: D2, E62, E65, G33, H81, L25
Perturbative width of open rigid-strings

Abstract: We present perturbative calculation of the width of the energy profile of rigid strings up to two loops in D-dimensions. The perturbative expansion of the extrinsic curvature term signifying the rigidity/smoothness of the string in Polyakov-Kleinert action is taken around the free Nambu-Goto string. The mean-square width of the string field is derived for open strings with Dirichlet boundary condition. We compare the broadening of the smooth Polyakov-Kleinert string to the lattice Mont-Carlo data of the QCD flux tube just before the deconfinement point and find a good match at the intermediate and large color source separation.
Radiative transfer simulations of multiphase AGN tori: thermal emission and polarisation

Abstract The unification model of active galactic nuclei postulates an accreting supermassive black hole as the central engine, surrounded by a putative dusty torus. This dust absorbs the incoming radiation, re-emits it in the infrared and obscures our view of the central region at certain inclinations. We present a new set of AGN models, in which the torus is modelled as a 3D multiphase medium. These new models can explain the observed spectral energy distribution of AGNs over the entire infrared domain, including the observed silicate feature strength and the level of near-infrared continuum. A new generation of multi-phase models, based on hydrodynamical simulations, is being constructed. We will compute the polarisation structure of these physically motivated 3D torus models, and compare them to simpler smooth torus models and to the available observational data.
3D profile measurement for stepped microstructures using region-based transport of intensity equation

One of the major challenges in the semiconductor industry is to measure the three-dimensional (3D) profile of objects with large step height (>100 µm), as well as nanometer-level surface profiles. In this work, a novel technique called region-based transport of intensity equation (R-TIE) is explored to measure both large step heights as well as local surface profiles with nanometer resolution. The key factors of the R-TIE are the use of composite image segmentation, transport of intensity equation (TIE), and a smart imaging system. The imaging system incorporates an electrically tunable lens to record objects at different focus positions with large field of view, high speed, and no mechanical moving parts. The TIE part of the system allows for nanometer height measurement at areas of interest. We demonstrate the basic principle and feasibility of the proposed method by experimentally measuring different stepped specimens.
ILL-POSEDNESS FOR THE COMPRESSIBLE NAVIER–STOKES EQUATIONS WITH THE VELOCITY IN $L^{6}$ FRAMEWORK

Ill-posedness for the compressible Navier–Stokes equations has been proved by Chen et al. [On the ill-posedness of the compressible Navier–Stokes equations in the critical Besov spaces, Revista Mat. Iberoam. 31 (2015), 1375–1402] in critical Besov space $L^{p}$ $(p>6)$ framework. In this paper, we prove ill-posedness with the initial data satisfying $$\begin{eqnarray}\displaystyle \Vert \unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}_{0}-\bar{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}}\Vert _{{\dot{B}}_{p,1}^{\frac{3}{p}}}\leqslant \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF},\quad \Vert u_{0}\Vert _{{\dot{B}}_{6,1}^{-\frac{1}{2}}}\leqslant \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}. & & \displaystyle \nonumber\end{eqnarray}$$ To accomplish this goal, we require a norm inflation coming from the coupling term $L(a)\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E5}u$ instead of $u\cdot \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FB}u$ and construct a new decomposition of the density.
The Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome and Its Components among Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients Northwest Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors that is responsible for the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of MetS and its components among T2DM patients. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Diabetes Clinic of the Hospital, from June to July, 2015. Data were entered into EPI INFO software and exported to SPSS 20 for analysis. MetS prevalence was estimated using NCEP ATPIII and IDF criteria. Anthropometric measurements, investigations of serum glucose and lipid profiles were done. Logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate associated factors. A P-value ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULT: A total of 159 participants were included in the study; 119 (59.7%) were females with mean (±SD) age of (49.8±8.7) year. The prevalence of MetS was 66.7% in NCEP-ATP III and 53.5% in IDF definitions. The most prevalent component of MetS was elevated triglyceride (56.6% in ATPIII and 62.3% in IDF criteria), followed by abdominal obesity (61%) IDF and elevated blood pressure (55.4%) NCEP-ATPIII criteria. The regression analysis showed that increased age, being female, high BMI, having diabetes for over 5 years and poor glycemic control were significantly associated with metabolic syndrome. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of MetS and its components among T2DM patients were high, suggesting that diabetic patients are at increased risk of CVD and other complications. Efforts should be geared towards addressing these abnormalities through lifestyle modification, health awareness and medications in order to reduce this complication.
The Impact of Effective Buoyancy and Dynamic Pressure Forcing on Vertical Velocities within Two-Dimensional Updrafts

AbstractThis research develops simple diagnostic expressions for vertical acceleration dw/dt and vertical velocity w within updrafts that account for effective buoyancy and the dynamic pressure gradient force. Effective buoyancy is the statically forced component of the vertical gradient in the nonhydrostatic pressure field. The diagnostic expressions derived herein show that the effective buoyancy of an updraft is dependent on the magnitude of the temperature perturbation within an updraft relative to the air along the updraft’s immediate periphery (rather than relative to an arbitrary base state as in ), the updraft’s height-to-width aspect ratio, and the updraft’s slant relative to the vertical.The diagnostic expressions are significantly improved over parcel theory (where pressure forces are ignored) in their portrayal of the vertical profile of w through updrafts from a cloud model simulation and accurately diagnosed the maximum vertical velocity wmax within updrafts. The largest improvements to the .
Assessment of Psychological Distress among Workers of a Confectionary

Objective: Psychiatric distress and work related stress may have a profound effect on an individual's well-being . The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence rate of mental health problems and their distribution by age, educational level, marital status and years of employment in a chocolate manufacturing company in Iran . The General Health Questionnaire (a widely used screening instrument) which detects a wide range of psychological problems, mainly anxiety/depression spectrum, was used in this study. Method: The study group consisted of 144 workers who were screened using the GHQ-28 in the Persian language version. Workers with a GHQ score of 6 or more were defined as having psychiatric distress. Multiple logistic regression was performed to assess the odds ratios (ORs) for mental health problems including age, years of employment, marital status and educational level of the GHQ. Results: The prevalence of suspected mental health problems increased with age and years of employment (range 16.7%-41.2% and 15.2%-36.8%, respectively). The increased risks for mental health problems were observed for the range 11-20 (OR = 3.1; 95% CI 1.1-8.4) and >20 years employment (OR=3.7; 95%CI 1.2-11.3). Conclusions: The study results demonstrated a significant association between years of employment and suspected mental health problems.
Diagnostic accuracy and reproducibility of conventional and novel caries detection methods as determined by histology and micro-CT : a study in vitro

can be found in the Appendix 5.1. Segmentation of sound and carious tooth structure: The imported 16 bit DICOM image (grayscale values -32768 to 32767, where negative values were not physically meaningful and deleted because of detector noise) data stacks of each tooth with occlusal and/or proximal lesions were opened with Image J. A duplicate stack of the image slices from each tooth was created in order to split the slices representing the whole tooth from the slices representing the hydroxyapatite disk. The grayscale values corresponding to the background noise (surrounding embedding resin etc.) were eliminated from the MicroCT images. To further enhance lesion identification the contrast was set at approximately 20%. The slices were filtered further with a median filter (radius 1 pixel) to help noise reduction on the images. Reslicing of the tooth in 0.1 mm thick virtual slices in a mesiodistal plane was then carried out. The slice thickness was chosen to reduce the number of the slices per tooth to enable meaningful analysis of the carious lesion in a manageable
Unsupervised Self-Normalized Change-Point Testing for Time Series

ABSTRACT We propose a new self-normalized method for testing change points in the time series setting. Self-normalization has been celebrated for its ability to avoid direct estimation of the nuisance asymptotic variance and its flexibility of being generalized to handle quantities other than the mean. However, it was developed and mainly studied for constructing confidence intervals for quantities associated with a stationary time series, and its adaptation to change-point testing can be nontrivial as direct implementation can lead to tests with nonmonotonic power. Compared with existing results on using self-normalization in this direction, the current article proposes a new self-normalized change-point test that does not require prespecifying the number of total change points and is thus unsupervised. In addition, we propose a new contrast-based approach in generalizing self-normalized statistics to handle quantities other than the mean, which is specifically tailored for change-point testing. Monte Carlo simulations are presented to illustrate the finite-sample performance of the proposed method. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Job Embeddedness Theory: Can It Help Explain Employee Retention Among Extension Agents?

The study reported here examined Job Embeddedness theory, as introduced by Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, and Erez (2001), which offers a method of discovering why people stay in an organization. Extension agents in two states (N=454) reported significantly different levels of job embeddedness during the study period. Regression analyses showed that job embeddedness was significantly correlated with and predicted unique variance in intent to stay.
This just in : analysis of factors influencing online newspaper reading behaviour

Research on the interplay between print and online newspapers is abundant. However, determinants of the usage of an online newspaper have seen little research attention. Hence the following research question was formulated: What factors influence the usage of online newspapers and how do they relate to each other? To structure the research the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model was used. It consists of four factors which influence the intention to use and actual use behaviour: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions. After a literature study the model was expanded upon with the concepts of attitude, habit and counterintentional habit. Counterintentional habit was operationalized as the habit of reading a print newspaper. Data collection made use of an online questionnaire about an online newspaper. Invitations to participate in the survey were sent to 2314 people in the Dutch summer vacation of 2006, of whom 990 responded (a response rate of 39%). Of these 990 returned questionnaires, 723 were usable. Respondents who did not know the online newspaper were filtered out
Independence of Early Speech Processing from Word Meaning

Katherine E. Travis1,8 Matthew K. Leonard8,2, Alexander M. Chan9,6, Christina Torres8,3, Marisa L. Sizemore5, Zhe Qu8,10, Emad Eskandar7, Anders M. Dale1,8,3, Jeffrey L. Elman2,4, Sydney S. Cash9,6 and Eric Halgren1,8,3,4 Department of Neurosciences, Department of Cognitive Science, Department of Radiology, Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind and Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communication Disorders, San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego, CA 92093, USA Department of Neurology and Department of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA Multimodal Imaging Laboratory, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA HarvardMIT Division of Health Science and Technology, Medical Engineering and Medical Physics, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Exact Discretization of an Economic Accelerator and Multiplier with Memory

Fractional differential equations of macroeconomics, which allow us to take into account power-law memory effects, are considered. We describe an economic accelerator and multiplier with fading memory in the framework of discrete-time and continuous-time approaches. A relationship of the continuous- and discrete-time fractional-order equations is considered. We propose equations of the accelerator and multiplier for economic processes with power-law memory. Exact discrete analogs of these equations are suggested by using the exact fractional differences of integer and non-integer orders. Exact correspondence between the equations with finite differences and differential equations lies not so much in the limiting condition, when the step of discretization tends to zero, as in the fact that mathematical operations, which are used in these equations, satisfy in many cases the same mathematical laws.
Observation of reversible critical current performance under large compressive strain in Sr0.6K0.4Fe2As2 tapes

Iron-based superconductors have caused great interest regarding high-field applications due to their good properties. A common fabrication route for 122-type wires and tapes is the ex situ powder-in-tube (PIT) process. From the point of application in the high magnetic field, where high electromagnetic forces are present, the conductor strength and its tolerance to the mechanical load are important issues. In order to understand the comparatively integrated critical current characterization of the Sr-122 tape under axial strain, the so-called U-spring setup was used to test a silver-sheathed Sr0.6K0. 4Fe2As2 tape sample with a single core over a wide range of applied axial strain (−0.6% ∼ 0.3%). It was found that when the sample was compressed, the critical current performance showed reversiblity; meanwhile the irreversible tensile strain limit was quite low. The Sr-122/Ag tape shows very good performance under compression, and a possible conductor design should be considered to make the superconductor work at proper compressive strain states for future applications.
Comparing the P3-approximation with diffusion theory and with Monte Carlo calculations of light propagation in a slab geometry

The energy fluence rate in a slab of tissue has been calculated for a monodirectional and unpola- rized incident light beam of infinite diameter perpendicular to the tissue surface. Published values for the optical constants of human dermis are used and the angular dependence of scattering is de- scribed by the Henyey-Greenstein function. Results are given for index matched and index mis- matched situations. The P3-approximation to the transport equation appears to be a considerable improvement over the P1 or diffusion approximation. Another improvement is obtained when a delta function is added to the scattering function. In the diffusion model this is called the delta- Eddington approximation. In the P3-approximation this addition yields a near perfect agreement with results of Monte Carlo calculations. The improvements are particularly apparent at the boundary where the incident beam enters the tissue. The relevance of these results for dosimetry in Photodynamic Therapy is discussed.
Nanoscale quantum transport for quantum information processing

In this thesis, I study quantum transport of electron (e.g., current and noise) in quantum dots exploring microscopic processes responsible for spin-relaxation in double quantum dots in Pauli spin blockade regime. This is a regime where current is blocked due to the spin configuration of electrons in the dot. The Pauli spin blockade provides a means for preparation, manipulation and readout in spin qubits. Hence, understanding the underlying mechanism which lifts this blockade is extremely important. First, I have developed a theory of spin-flip cotunneling (higher order tunneling) processes in double quantum dots in the Pauli spin blockade regime. Utilizing this theory, I have calculated the full analytical dependence of the stationary current on applied magnetic fields, gate voltages, and an inter-dot tunnel coupling in Pauli spin blockade. This work is important for understanding the nature of leakage, especially in systems where other spin-flip mechanisms (due, e.g., hyperfine coupling to nuclear spins or spin-orbit coupling) are weak, including silicon and carbonnanotube or graphene quantum dots. This theory explains recent experiments on carbon nanotubes and silicon double quantum dot. In addition, I propose a new scheme based on the current noise to probe spinrelaxation mechanisms in double quantum dot in the Pauli spin blockade regime, where spin-selection rule applies. As a result, I provide a simple closed-form expression which can be used to fit experimental data to extract multiple spin-relaxation rates, even at very low energy splitting. This method allows for the characterization of different aspects of decay process in these systems.
Building a new rasch-based self-report inventory of depression

: This paper illustrates a sequential item development process to create a new self-report instrument of depression refined with Rasch analysis from a larger pool of potential diagnostic items elicited through a consensus approach by clinical experts according to the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for major depression. A 51-item pool was administered to a sample of 529 subjects (300 healthy community-dwelling adults and 229 psychiatric outpatients). Item selection resulted in a 21-item set, named the Teate Depression Inventory, with an excellent Person Separation Index and no evidence of bias due to an item–trait interaction ( χ 2 = 147.71; df = 168; P = 0.48). Additional support for the unidimensionality, local independence, appropriateness of the response format, and discrimination ability between clinical and nonclinical subjects was provided. No substantial differential item functioning by sex was observed. The Teate Depression Inventory shows considerable promise as a unidimensional tool for the screening of depression. Finally, advantages and disadvantages of this methodology will be discussed in terms of subsequent possible mathematical analyses, statistical tests, and implications for clinical investigations.
Cabazitaxel: a novel second-line treatment for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer

: Until recently, patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) had limited therapeutic options once they became refractory to docetaxel chemotherapy, and no treatments improved survival. This changed in June 2010 when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cabazitaxel as a new option for patients with CRPC whose disease progresses during or after docetaxel treatment. For most of these patients, cabazitaxel will now replace mitoxantrone (a drug that was FDA-approved because of its palliative effects) as the treatment of choice for docetaxel-refractory disease. The approval of cabazitaxel was based primarily on the TROPIC trial, a large (n = 755) randomized Phase III study showing an overall median survival benefit of 2.4 months for men with docetaxel-pretreated metastatic CRPC receiving cabazitaxel (with prednisone) compared to mitoxantrone (with prednisone). Cabazitaxel is a novel tubulin-binding taxane that differs from docetaxel because of its poor affinity for P-glycoprotein (P-gp), an ATP-dependent drug efflux pump. Cancer cells that express P-gp become resistant to taxanes, and the effectiveness of docetaxel can be limited by its high substrate affinity for P-gp. Preclinical and early clinical studies show that cabazitaxel retains activity in docetaxel-resistant tumors, and this was confirmed by the TROPIC study. Common adverse events with cabazitaxel include neutropenia (including febrile neutropenia) and diarrhea, while neuropathy was rarely observed. Thus, the combination of cabazitaxel and prednisone is an important new treatment option for men with docetaxel-refractory metastatic CRPC, but this agent should be administered cau-tiously and with appropriate monitoring (especially in men at high risk of neutropenic complications).