Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Portfolio selection based on a simulated copula

In this paper, we propose a methodology to value the portfolio choices based on the prediction of future returns where the dependence structure of joint returns and the behavior of single returns are estimated separately. In particular, we assume the marginals evolve as an ARMA(0,2)-GARCH(0,2) model with stable paretian residuals and the joint distribution of residuals is estimated with an asymmetric t-copula. Then, we compare the ex-post nal wealth sample paths of di¤erent strategies based on reward/risk ratios. Doing so we examine and discuss the impact of the forecasting method with respect to classic myopic portfolio strategies based on the same reward/risk ratios.
Decoupled Learning of Environment Characteristics for Safe Exploration

Reinforcement learning is a proven technique for an agent to learn a task. However, when learning a task using reinforcement learning, the agent cannot distinguish the characteristics of the environment from those of the task. This makes it harder to transfer skills between tasks in the same environment. Furthermore, this does not reduce risk when training for a new task. In this paper, we introduce an approach to decouple the environment characteristics from the task-specific ones, allowing an agent to develop a sense of survival. We evaluate our approach in an environment where an agent must learn a sequence of collection tasks, and show that decoupled learning allows for a safer utilization of prior knowledge.
Cold Hyperalgesia Associated With Poorer Prognosis in Lateral Epicondylalgia: A 1-Year Prognostic Study of Physical and Psychological Factors

Background:Predictors of outcome in lateral epicondylalgia, which is mainly characterized as a mechanical hyperalgesia, are largely limited to sociodemographic and symptomatic factors. Quantitative sensory testing is used to study altered pain processing in various chronic pain conditions and may be of prognostic relevance. Methods:The predictive capacity of early measures of physical and psychological impairment on pain and disability and mechanical hyperalgesia, were examined using data from 41 patients assigned to placebo in a prospective randomized controlled trial of unilateral lateral epicondylalgia. Quantitative sensory testing (pressure, cold pain thresholds), motor function (pain-free grip), and psychological factors (Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) were measured at baseline. The outcome measures were the Patient-rated Tennis Elbow Evaluation (PRTEE) scale and pressure pain threshold (PPT) measured by digital algometry at the affected elbow. Backward stepwise linear regression was used to predict PRTEE and PPT scores at 2 and 12 months. Results:Cold pain threshold was the only consistent predictor for both PRTEE (P<0.034) and PPT (P<0.048). Initial PRTEE was the strongest single predictor of PRTEE at 2 months, whereas female sex was the strongest single predictor of PPT (P<0.002). At 1 year, final models explained 9% to 52% of the variability in pain and disability and mechanical hyperalgesia, respectively. Discussion:Early assessment of cold pain threshold could be a useful clinical tool to help identify patients at risk of poorer outcomes and might provide direction for future research into mechanism-based treatment approaches for these patients.
Cardiopulmonary variables during exercise predict pregnancy outcome in women with congenital heart disease.

BACKGROUND Maternal New York Heart Association (NYHA) class is associated with pregnancy outcome in women with congenital heart disease (WCHD), but objective predictive criteria of exercise capacity have not been established. METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 33 WCHD (age, 28 ± 5 years; NYHA class, 1.3 ± 0.6) who had undergone cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPX) 1.8 ± 2.2 years before their delivery were retrospectively identified. Maternal, cardiac, and neonatal events occurred in 8 (24%), 12 (36%), and 14 (42%), respectively. All CPX parameters correlated with neonatal birth weight (P<0.05-0.001). Exercise time, peak heart rate (HR), peak systolic blood pressure, and peak oxygen uptake (VO(2)) were associated with cardiac events (P<0.05-0.01), and exercise time and peak VO(2) were also associated with neonatal events (P<0.05). Exercise time, peak HR, and peak VO(2) were associated with at least 1 of the 3 events (P<0.05-0.01). Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that peak HR <150 beats/min and/or peak VO(2) <22.0 ml · kg(-1) · min(-1), peak VO(2) <26.2 ml · kg(-1) · min(-1), and peak HR <150 beats/min and/or peak VO(2) <25.3 ml · kg(-1) · min(-1) predicted a high probability of maternal cardiac, neonatal, and maternal cardiac and/or neonatal event, respectively. CONCLUSIONS CPX parameters predict pregnancy outcome and peak HR ≥ 150 beats/min and/or peak VO(2) ≥ 25 ml · kg(-1) · min(-1) may be reference value(s) for a safer pregnancy outcome in WCHD.
Stock Prices in the Presence of Liquidity Crises: The Effect of Creditor Protection

type="main" xml:id="ecca12072-abs-0001"> We develop a model predicting two channels through which creditor protection affects stock prices: (1) the probability of a liquidity crisis leading to a binding investment-finance constraint falls with better creditor protection; (2) the stock prices under the investment-constrained regime increase with better creditor protection. We find evidence for both predictions using data on stock markets and creditor protection for 52 countries from 1980 to 2008. In particular, better creditor protection is correlated with lower stock market volatility and lower frequency of crises. Moreover, during crises, stock prices and investment fall more in countries with poor creditor protection.
Hierarchical Distributed Motion Control for Multiple Linear Switched Reluctance Machines

This paper investigates a distributed, coordinated motion control network based on multiple direct-drive, linear switched reluctance machines (LSRMs). A hierarchical, two-level synchronization control strategy is proposed for the four LSRMs based motion control network. The high-level, reference signals agreement algorithm is first employed to correct the asynchronous behaviors of the position commands. Then, the low-level tracking synchronization method is applied for the collaborative position control of the four LSRMs. The proposed two-level, fault-tolerant control strategy eliminates the asynchrony of the reference signals and it also guarantees the coordinated tracking control performance of the four LSRMs. Experimental results demonstrate that effective coordinated tracking control can be ensured, based on the successful agreement of reference signals and an absolute tracking error falling within 2 mm can be achieved.
Histidinol Dehydrogenase (hisD) Mutants of Salmonella typhimurium

A multidisciplinary analysis has been applied to over 150 hisD mutants of Salmonella typhimurium in a study of gene-enzyme relationship. The mutants were examined for production of immunologically cross-reacting material by using antibody to purified histidinol dehydrogenase, and for genetic complementation by using a set of F′ factors bearing Escherichia coli hisD complementing mutants. Classifications as to missense, nonsense, frameshift, or deletion mutant are proposed on the basis of mutagenesis and suppression tests. For the suppression tests the mutants were examined both by a simultaneous suppression technique and by testing for response to E. coli F′ factors bearing a recessive lethal amber and a recessive lethal ochre suppressor. The data are interpreted in relation to the position of the mutations in the recombination and complementation maps and in relation to the known composition of histidinol dehydrogenase. The gene hisD appears to be single cistron for the production of a single biosynthetic polypeptide.
Tools for Optimizing Management of a Spatially Variable Organic Field

Geostatistical tools were used to estimate spatial relations between wheat yield and soil parameters under organic farming field conditions. Thematic maps of each factor were created as raster images in R software using kriging. The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) calculated the principal component analysis raster images for soil parameters and yield. The correlation between the raster arising from the PC1 of soil and yield parameters showed high linear correlation (r = 0.75) and explained 48.50% of the data variance. The data show that durum wheat yield is strongly affected by soil parameter variability, and thus, the average production can be substantially lower than its potential. Soil water content was the limiting factor to grain yield and not nitrate as in other similar studies. The use of precision agriculture tools helped reduce the level of complexity between the measured parameters by the grouping of several parameters and demonstrating that precision agriculture tools can be applied in small organic fields, reducing costs and increasing wheat yield. Consequently, site-specific applications could be expected to improve the yield without increasing excessively the cost for farmers and enhance environmental and economic benefits.
On Approximability of Bounded Degree Instances of Selected Optimization Problems

In order to cope with the approximation hardness of an underlying optimization problem, it is advantageous to consider specific families of instances with properties that can be exploited to obtain efficient approximation algorithms for the restricted version of the problem with improved performance guarantees. In this thesis, we investigate the approximation complexity of selected NP-hard optimization problems restricted to instances with bounded degree, occurrence or weight parameter. Specifically, we consider the family of dense instances, where typically the average degree is bounded from below by some function of the size of the instance. Complementarily, we examine the family of sparse instances, in which the average degree is bounded from above by some fixed constant. We focus on developing new methods for proving explicit approximation hardness results for general as well as for restricted instances. The fist part of the thesis contributes to the systematic investigation of the VERTEX COVER problem in k-hypergraphs and k-partite k-hypergraphs with density and regularity constraints. We design efficient approximation algorithms for the problems with improved performance guarantees as compared to the general case. On the other hand, we prove the optimality of our approximation upper bounds under the Unique Games Conjecture or a variant. In the second part of the thesis, we study mainly the approximation hardness of restricted instances of selected global optimization problems. We establish improved or in some cases the first inapproximability thresholds for the problems considered in this thesis such as the METRIC DIMENSION problem restricted to graphs with maximum degree 3 and the (1,2)-STEINER TREE problem. We introduce a new reductions method for proving explicit approximation lower bounds for problems that are related to the TRAVELING SALESPERSON (TSP) problem. In particular, we prove the best up to now inapproximability thresholds for the general METRIC TSP problem, the ASYMMETRIC TSP problem, the SHORTEST SUPERSTRING problem, the MAXIMUM TSP problem and TSP problems with bounded metrics.
A Supervisory Energy Management Control Strategy in a Battery/Ultracapacitor Hybrid Energy Storage System

One of the major challenges in a battery/ ultracapacitor hybrid energy storage system (HESS) is to design a supervisory controller for real-time implementation that can yield good power split performance. This paper presents the design of a supervisory energy management strategy that optimally addresses this issue. In this work, a multiobjective optimization problem is formulated to optimize the power split in order to prolong the battery lifetime and to reduce the HESS power losses. In this HESS energy management problem, a detailed dc-dc converter model is considered to include both the conduction losses and the switching losses. The optimization problem is numerically solved for various drive cycle data sets using dynamic programming (DP). Trained using the DP results, an effective and intelligent online implementation of the optimal power split is realized based on neural networks (NNs). The proposed online intelligent energy management controller is applied to a midsize electric vehicles (EV). A rule-based control strategy is also implemented in this work for comparison with the proposed energy management strategy. The proposed online energy management controller effectively splits the load demand and achieves excellent result of the energy efficiency. It is also estimated that the proposed online energy management controller can extend the battery life by over 60%, which greatly outperforms the rule-based control strategy.
Orthognathic Surgery in Craniofacial Microsomia: Treatment Algorithm

Summary: Craniofacial microsomia is a broad term that covers a variety of craniofacial malformation conditions that are caused by alterations in the derivatives of the first and second pharyngeal arches. In general terms, diverse therapeutic alternatives are proposed according to the growth stage and the severity of the alteration. When craniofacial growth has concluded, conventional orthognathic surgery (Le Fort I osteotomy, bilateral sagittal split osteotomy, and genioplasty) provides good alternatives for MI and MIIA type cases. Reconstruction of the mandibular ramus and temporomandibular joint before orthognathic surgery is the indicated treatment for cases MIIB and MIII. The goal of this article is to establish a surgical treatment algorithm for orthognathic surgery on patients with craniofacial microsomia, analyzing the points that allow the ideal treatment for each patient to be chosen.
Prospective memory across the lifespan: Investigating the contribution of retrospective and prospective processes

ABSTRACT Prospective memory performance follows an inverted U-shaped function across the lifespan. Findings on the relative contribution of purely prospective memory and retrospective memory processes within prospective memory to this trajectory are scarce and inconclusive. We analyzed age-related differences in prospective memory performance across the lifespan in a cross-sectional design including six age groups (N = 99, 7–83 years) and investigated possible mechanisms by experimentally disentangling the relative contributions of retrospective memory and purely prospective memory processes. Results confirmed the inverted U-shaped function of prospective memory performance across the lifespan. A significant interaction between process type and age group was observed indicating differential relative contributions of retrospective memory and purely prospective memory processes on the development of prospective memory performance. Our results showed that mainly the pure prospective memory processes within prospective memory lead to lower prospective memory performance in young children and old adults. Moreover, the relative contributions of the retrospective memory and purely prospective memory processes are not uniform at both ends of the lifespan, i.e., in later adulthood the purely prospective memory processes seem to determine performance to an even greater extent than in childhood. Nevertheless, age effects were also observed in the retrospective component which thus contributed to the prospective memory performance differences between the age groups.
High Performance Temperature Sensing of Single Mode-Multimode-Single Mode Fiber With Thermo-Optic Polymer as Cladding of Multimode Fiber Segment

We present a fiber sensing for temperature with two different mode interferences. The sensor consists of a single mode-multimode-single mode (SMS) fiber with a specifically designed and synthesized thermo-optic polymer cladding, forming a leaky mode fiber interferometer and a guided one at different temperatures. A maximum temperature sensitivity of 1.4 dB/°C below 61°C and of 15 nm/°C above 72°C have been achieved. The high temperature sensitivity is mainly attributed to the high thermo-optic coefficient of the polymer cladding. The phenomenon of the fiber temperature sensing around the transformation point can be observed and studied using the proposed fiber sample. It is found that the SMS fiber sensor is more sensitive to temperature for both of the mode interferences when the refractive index (RI) of the polymer is closer to that of the multimode fiber core, and the measurement range is relatively wide.
HPV positivity varies with technique and primer set, in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded benign and malignant breast tissue from Malta

The role of human papillomavirus in breast cancer pathogenesis is an area of considerable debate following differing results from all over the world. This study analyzed paraffin embedded tissue from 19 patients with benign or malignant breast disease. Standard PCR with GP5+/6+ and FAP primers, proved negative in all cases. However, qRT-PCR using the SF10 primer set detected HPV DNA in 2 out of these samples. Whilst our data does not support a major role for HPV in the pathogenesis of breast disease in Malta, it definitely does not exclude it totally. This study also clearly shows that the method of analysis is one of the variables resulting in the range of differing results witnessed worldwide in this area of study.
Proteome study of Francisella tularensis live vaccine strain‐containing phagosome in Bcg/Nramp1 congenic macrophages: Resistant allele contributes to permissive environment and susceptibility to infection

The phagocytosis of pathogens by macrophages classically initiates maturation of the phagosome that involves a dynamic exchange of phagosomal components with intracellular compartments of the endocytic pathway. The intracellular microorganisms have developed sophisticated mechanisms to sense environmental conditions and respond to them by phenotypic alterations that ensure their adaptation, survival and proliferation inside the cell. They have learned also to utilise host cellular components to ensure own survival. Recent results suggest that the Bcg locus/Nramp1 gene (natural resistance‐associated macrophage protein 1) controls natural resistance to infection by Francisella tularensis LVS (live vaccine strain) and its effect is opposite to that observed for other Bcg/Nramp1‐controlled pathogens such as several mycobacterial species, Leischmania donovani, and Salmonella typhimurium. In the case of F. tularensis LVS infection, the mutant allele of the Bcg locus (Bcgs/Nramp1s) is associated with natural resistance and, inversely, the wild type allele (Bcgr/Nramp1r) confers susceptibility. To determine whether differential allelic expression of the Bcg locus/Nramp1 gene modifies the composition of F. tularensis LVS‐containing phagosomes (FCP), we have utilised an approach where we isolated FCP from infected Bcg congenic B10R (Bcgr/Nramp1r) and B10S (Bcgs/Nramp1s) macrophages of susceptible and resistant phenotype, respectively. Comparative proteomic analysis of the two phagosomal compartments with subsequent mass spectrometric analysis allowed identification of several proteins typical for FCP from B10R macrophages. They include a bacterial hypothetical 23 kDa protein, 60 kDa chaperonin GroEL, and host putative proteins that appeared to be mitochondrial ATP synthase β‐chain and NADH‐ubiquinone oxidoreductase based on high cross‐species homology. High abundance of the hypothetical 23 kDa protein correlates with the susceptible phenotype and, possibly, pathogenicity of F. tularensis LVS. The results demonstrate that F. tularensis LVS can exploit ion transport function of Bcg/Nramp1 to its own advantage.
STATUS OF ANTIOXIDANT DEFENCE SYSTEM FOR DETOXIFICATION OF ARSENIC IN BRASSICA JUNCEA ( L . )

The content of arsenic (As), a naturally occurring toxic element found in soils worldwide, has gone substantially high in agricultural soils due to var ious anthropogenic activities. The responses of see d germination, seedling growth, photosynthetic pigmen ts and the components of the ascorbateglutathione (AsA-GSH) pathway were analyzed in Indi a mustard [ Brassica juncea (L.) Czern. ] cultivar Pusa Jai Kisan, treated with 0, 5, 10, 25 and 50 μM As concentrat ions in a hydroponic system. While a significant increment in lipid pero xidation and H2O2 generation was observed at higher concentrations after 2 and 5 days of stress imposition. Significant increases were also observe d in superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascor bate peroxidase (APX), and glutathione reductase (GR) activities under the influence of 25 and 50 μM As concentrations after 2 and 5 d stress impositions. There was a steep increase in t he ascorbic acid (AsA) content between 2 and 5 d after As treatment, while glutathione (GSH) content i creased significantly after 5-d-exposure. Accumulation of As was more in shoot than in root. This study clearly demonstrated that high concentration (50 μM) of As inhibited growth and ca used oxidative stress and that the AsA-GSH pathway has an important role in cellular defense a gainst As in Brassica juncea ( L.).
ESTIMATING THE DURATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL ACTIVITY USING 14C DETERMINATIONS

Summary. One of the questions that archaeologists have always hoped to be able to answer using radiocarbon dating is: ‘How long did this activity last? '. It has for some time been accepted that this question cannot adequately be addressed by simply calibrating single radiocarbon determinations. Rather, it is necessary to find means for coherently relating such determinations to one another and to the archaeology from which they came. In addition, most archaeologists are aware that estimation of duration is likely to be greatly affected by the presence of any aberrant determinations (‘outliers') and that they should, therefore, be allowed for in the estimation procedure. In this paper we look at the issues which relate to solving problems of this type and highlight some difficulties associated with one currently available method for approaching them. By adopting a Bayesian approach to estimating duration, it is possible to provide an explicit and coherent framework within which such investigations can take place and whereby each specific problem can be considered in its own right. In archaeological terms, this paper has, we hope, clarified the problems involved in estimating the duration of a period of time represented by a series of unordered radiocarbon determinations, and in providing estimates of the calendar dates for its beginning and end. These estimates take in any archaeological evidence available, for example, termini ante/post quos (here the arrival of the Spanish in Peru forms a terminus ante quern), and may be repeated when new evidence becomes available. For the first time, we provide an objective method for identifying outliers in the data and documenting the effect of their removal. We have given an example for the Peruvian Chancay culture to demonstrate the potential of this approach.