Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bond Yield Spreads and Country Risk

This paper investigates how bond yield spreads are related to country risk. Bond prices and bond yields are determined in the secondary market. Therefore, bond yields and their spread vis-à-vis US Treasury bonds might provide a continuous and more reliable information base than traditional measures of country risk. We aim at analyzing how changes in the bond yield spread indicate changes in country risk. It turns out that there is a strong relation between the two. Furthermore, we show that higher yield spreads and higher β’s result in larger changes in the bond yield spread. Acknowledgements: I wish to thank Ramon Tol for his invaluable research assistance. Elmer Sterken and Sweder van Wijnbergen gave very useful comments on previous versions of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.
Violent audiovisual content and social consequences: The moderating role of aggression in adolescents

Abstract Numerous studies have linked the consumption of violent audiovisual content to the increase of aggressive cognitions and behaviors. This research aims to clarify whether the possible harmful consequences of violent videogames might vary depending on an individual variable such as trait aggressiveness. A correlational study was carried out among 6,130 teenagers (average age of 13.8 years) from two European countries, in which it became evident, by means of multiple regression analyses, that there was a positive correlation between the use of violent videogames and aggressive behavioral intentions. More relevantly, these correlations were greater amongst those subjects with higher scores on the Aggression Scale. Finally, when analyzing the subjective experiences of users of violent videogames, the more aggressive individuals manifested a greater desire to imitate the characters of the interactive content, admitting that they ended up more agitated even when their initial objective was to relieve tension or relax. Practical and theoretical implications (e.g., Catharsis theory) of those results are discussed.
Refinement of Light-Responsive Transcript Lists Using Rice Oligonucleotide Arrays: Evaluation of Gene-Redundancy

Studies of gene function are often hampered by gene-redundancy, especially in organisms with large genomes such as rice (Oryza sativa). We present an approach for using transcriptomics data to focus functional studies and address redundancy. To this end, we have constructed and validated an inexpensive and publicly available rice oligonucleotide near-whole genome array, called the rice NSF45K array. We generated expression profiles for light- vs. dark-grown rice leaf tissue and validated the biological significance of the data by analyzing sources of variation and confirming expression trends with reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. We examined trends in the data by evaluating enrichment of gene ontology terms at multiple false discovery rate thresholds. To compare data generated with the NSF45K array with published results, we developed publicly available, web-based tools (www.ricearray.org). The Oligo and EST Anatomy Viewer enables visualization of EST-based expression profiling data for all genes on the array. The Rice Multi-platform Microarray Search Tool facilitates comparison of gene expression profiles across multiple rice microarray platforms. Finally, we incorporated gene expression and biochemical pathway data to reduce the number of candidate gene products putatively participating in the eight steps of the photorespiration pathway from 52 to 10, based on expression levels of putatively functionally redundant genes. We confirmed the efficacy of this method to cope with redundancy by correctly predicting participation in photorespiration of a gene with five paralogs. Applying these methods will accelerate rice functional genomics.
Proceedings of Fast '03: 2nd Usenix Conference on File and Storage Technologies 2nd Usenix Conference on File and Storage Technologies Yfs: a Journaling File System Design for Handling Large Data Sets with Reduced Seeking *

In recent years, disk seek times have not improved commensurately with CPU performance, memory system performance, and disk transfer rates. Furthermore, many modern applications are making increasing use of large files. Traditional file system designs are limited in how they address these two trends. We present the design of a file system called yFS that consciously reduces disk seeking and handles large files efficiently. yFS does this by using extent-based allocations in conjunction with three different disk inode formats geared towards small, medium, and large files. Directory traversals are made efficient by using the B*-tree structure. yFS also uses lightweight asynchronous journaling to handle metadata changes. We have implemented yFS on FreeBSD and evaluated it using a variety of benchmarks. Our experimental evaluations show that yFS performs considerably better than the Fast File System (FFS) with Soft Updates on FreeBSD. The performance gains are in the range from 20% to 82%.
A Scalable Architecture for Dual Basis GF(2m) Multiplications

A novel low-complexity scalable architecture for dual basis multiplications over GF(2m) is proposed in this paper. This multiplier architecture is derived from the Hankel matrix-vector representation of dual basis multiplication, and is feasible for the finite fields generated by irreducible trinomials. By appropriately selecting its digit size, the proposed scalable architecture can achieve a satisfactory trade-off between hardware complexity and throughput performance for implementing ECC cryptosystems such as ECDSA in resource-constrained environments such as embedded systems and smart cards. Analytical results exhibit that the space complexity of the proposed multiplier architecture is substantially lower than that of the non-scalable architectures. Besides, owing to its features of regularity, modularity and concurrency, the proposed architecture is highly feasible for VLSI implementations.
DIMENSIONING WDM OPTICAL NETWORKS WITH MINIMUM MSPP CONFIGURATION

The recent development in Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology has led to a significant increase in the available transmission capacity in wide area networks. These networks are no longer limited by transmission bandwidth, but rather by the processing capability of electronic switches, routers, and multiplexers in the network. Traffic grooming corresponds to a key research area with the study of optical bypass in order to minimize the amount of electronic multiplexing equipment. We present a study on the design of a Tabu Search heuristic for minimizing the MSPP (Multi-Service Provisioning Platform) cost of a WDM network while optimizing the traffic grooming. The MSPP cost will be estimated through the number of transport blades or equivalently the number of optical bypasses.
High-efficiency triple-band ambient RF energy harvesting for wireless body sensor network

This paper proposes a triple-band rectifying circuit for ambient RF energy harvesting, which can be served as a power supply for the central unit in Wireless Body Sensor Networks (WBSN). It fully utilizes the RF energy in ambient and converts it into DC power with high efficiency. It covers the public telecommunication bands of GSM-900, GSM-1800 and UTMS-2100, which are measured to hold the major RF energy in ambient. Simultaneous multiband energy collection helps in achieving high conversion efficiency, which is around twice that of the conventional separate single-band inputs. Measurement results show that 31.2% RF-to-DC conversion efficiency and 159mV output DC voltage are gained over a resistive load of 3.3 KΩ with an input RF power of -20dBm.
DNA Immunization with Trypanosoma cruzi HSP70 Fused to the KMP11 Protein Elicits a Cytotoxic and Humoral Immune Response against the Antigen and Leads to Protection

ABSTRACT Murine immunization with Trypanosoma cruzi KMP11-HSP70fused genes but not the KMP11 gene alone elicited both an immunoglobulin G2a long-lasting humoral immune response against KMP11 protein and activation of CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes specific for two KMP11 peptides containing A2 motifs. Moreover, protection against the parasite challenge was observed after immunization with the chimeric gene.
Optimal boundary control problems for shape memory alloys under state constraints for stress and temperature

We consider two optimal control problems for first order martensitic phase transitions in a deformation-driven experiment on shape memory alloys including state constraints for the total stress and the temperature. We control by the elongation of a thin rod and by the outside temperature. The control problems are stated, and the necessary conditions of optimality are derived.
AUTOMATIC ILLUSTRATION OF OCEAN CURRENTS

ii This thesis has been examined and approved. Date The box is present here to hide the page number. Nothing in white shows up when printed. iii DEDICATION To Alan Quinn, Anna Quinn and Kate Scheuring for their infinite love and support. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to thank Colin Ware for approaching me with an interesting and exciting research topic and for providing the resources that allowed me to complete this project in a timely fashion. I would also like to thank Colin for his patience and guidance throughout this research; it has been an enlightening and enriching experience for me. I am grateful to Jamie Pringle for providing us with Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model output data for the Gulf of Maine region, and for his advice. I would also like to thank Roland Arsenault for his advice and source code that translated data from an irregular grid to a regular grid. Finally, I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee, R. Daniel Bergeron and Alejo Hausner, for their time and helpful feedback.
Free-viewpoint AR human-motion reenactment based on a single RGB-D video stream

When observing a person (an actor) performing or demonstrating some activity for the purpose of learning the action, it is best for the viewers to be present at the same time and place as the actor. Otherwise, a video must be recorded. However, conventional video only provides two-dimensional (2D) motion, which lacks the original third dimension of motion. In the presence of some ambiguity, it may be hard for the viewer to comprehend the action with only two dimensions, making it harder to learn the action. This paper proposes an augmented reality system to reenact such actions at any time the viewer wants, in order to aid comprehension of 3D motion. In the proposed system, a user first captures the actor's motion and appearance, using a single RGB-D camera. Upon a viewer's request, our system displays the motion from an arbitrary viewpoint using a rough 3D model of the subject, made up of cylinders, and selecting the most appropriate textures based on the viewpoint and the subject's pose. We evaluate the usefulness of the system and the quality of the displayed images by user study.
Dynamic Programming Agent for mobile robot navigation with moving obstacles

Dynamic programming (DP) approach to shortest path algorithm provides a global optimal solution to robot path planning in an indoor environment. The proposed DP shortest path algorithm for real-time provides collision-free robot-path planning in which the barriers is permitted to move in an indoor environment. Environment is represented as a grid map, each grid point records the distance to the target. The information stored at each point is a current estimate of the distance to the nearest target and the neighbor from which this distance was determined. Updating the distance estimate at each grid point is done using the information gathered from the point's neighbors. Dynamic Programming Agent requires the distance information in the neighbor grid points and no prior knowledge about the obstacle position is required. At each time step collision free shortest path is generated by propagating the distance to the target and updating them in an order depending on the distance to the target for intelligent navigation
Profiling of Phosphorylated Proteins in Human Fetal Liver

Constitutively phosphorylated proteins in Human fetal liver (HFL) aged 16-24 wk of gestation were studied using a 2-DE step followed by western blotting detection and MS identification. We found 166 phosphorylated protein spots with quantitative information and identified 101 gene products. Of theses identified proteins, 57 contain phosphoserine, 49 contain phosphothreonine, 51 contain phosphotyrosine, and 64 were newly identified phosphorylated proteins. The possible phosphorylation sites were further predicted using Netphos, ScanProsite and Scansite programs and most proteins were predicted the same site by at least 2 programs. Integrating the functional categories, protein abundance and the degree of phosphorylation of these proteins, we found proteins related to carbohydrate, lipid and amino acid metabolism were highly expressed with also the high degree of all serine, threonine and tyrosine phosphorylation; proteins associated with hematopoiesis were relatively highly expressed but with a relatively low degree of phosphorylation at serine, threonine and tyrosine; the proteins for signal transduction; biosynthesis of secondary metabolites and those whose function were unknown were lowly expressed, but with the zhigh degree of phosphorylation and interestingly, serine was the main phosphorylated amino acid of signal transducers; threonine in enzymes of biosynthesis of secondary metabolites; and tyrosine in proteins with unknown function.
Gene Expression Profiling in the Thiamethoxam Resistant and Susceptible B-biotype Sweetpotato Whitefly, Bemisia tabaci

Abstract Thiamethoxam has been used as a major insecticide to control the B-biotype sweetpotato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae). Due to its excessive use, a high level of resistance to thiamethoxam has developed worldwide over the past several years. To better understand the molecular mechanisms underlying this resistance in B. tabaci, gene profiles between the thiamethoxam-resistant and thiamethoxam-susceptible strains were investigated using the suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) library approach. A total of 72 and 52 upand down-regulated genes were obtained from the forward and reverse SSH libraries, respectively. These expressed sequence tags (ESTs) belong to several functional categories based on their gene ontology annotation. Some categories such as cell communication, response to abiotic stimulus, lipid particle, and nuclear envelope were identified only in the forward library of thiamethoxam-resistant strains. In contrast, categories such as behavior, cell proliferation, nutrient reservoir activity, sequence-specific DNA binding transcription factor activity, and signal transducer activity were identified solely in the reverse library. To study the validity of the SSH method, 16 differentially expressed genes from both forward and reverse SSH libraries were selected randomly for further analyses using quantitative realtime PCR (qRT-PCR). The qRT-PCR results were fairly consistent with the SSH results; however, only 50% of the genes showed significantly different expression profiles between the thiamethoxam-resistant and thiamethoxam-susceptible whiteflies. Among these genes, a putative NAD-dependent methanol dehydrogenase was substantially over-expressed in the thiamethoxamresistant adults compared to their susceptible counterparts. The distributed profiles show that it was highly expressed during the egg stage, and was most abundant in the abdomen of adult females.
Factors Affecting Delay Discounting—The Real Option Approach

We study factors that can influence Delayed Reward Discounting (DRD) behavior from a novel approach based on economic theory. Real Option (RO) analysis shows that when a decision is irreversible, can be delayed and produces uncertain benefits, then future rewards will be discounted in a way that produces seemingly irrational behavior. In a factorial experimental survey, we asked college students how much they were willing to pay for a digital product when the above factors are involved. Results show that DRD behavior is significantly more manifest when the above factors are present than when absent. We proceeded to calculate the magnitude of this increased DRD behavior that is consistent with predictions from RO theory.
Novel prospective respiratory motion correction approach for free‐breathing coronary MR angiography using a patient‐adapted affine motion model

A novel technique is presented which enables the calibration of a 3D affine respiratory motion model to the individual motion pattern of the patient. The concept of multiple navigators and precursory navigators is introduced to address nonlinear properties and hysteresis effects of the model parameters with respect to the conventional diaphragmatic navigator. The optimal combination and weighting of the navigators is determined on the basis of a principal component analysis (PCA). Thus, based on a given navigator measurement the current motion state of the object can be predicted by means of the calibrated motion model. The 3D motion model is applied in high‐resolution coronary MR angiography examinations (CMRA) to prospectively correct for respiration‐induced motion. The basic feasibility of the proposed calibration procedure was shown in 16 volunteers. Furthermore, the application of the calibrated motion model for CMRA examinations of the right coronary artery (RCA) was tested in 10 volunteers. The superiority of a calibrated 3D translation model over the conventional 1D translation model with a fixed correction factor and the potential of affine prospective motion correction for CMRA are demonstrated. Magn Reson Med 50:122–131, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Interference dynamics in MANETs with a random direction node mobility model

Interference is one of key factors of performance degradation in wireless communications. Various interference models have been proposed in the literature. However, most of them did not take node mobility into account. In fact, as an interferer approaches a carrier sensing range due to node mobility, the transmitted frame may also encounter a collision. Due to the interfering source, it is necessary to make an effective interference model to characterize the interference and signalto-interference ratio(SIR). In this paper, we propose a novel interference model through interference and SIR distribution functions obtained from mobile nodes. In particular, we focus on a random direction (RD) model. Based on the probability distribution function of distance between any node pairs, we theoretically estimate the distribution of the accumulated interference contributed by concurrent transmissions and the corresponding SIR values. Through this result, we investigate the probability of successful transmissions and the probability of carrier sensing failures.
Variable Support Based Association Rule Mining

Analysing datasets requires sophisticated techniques which can help to unearth interesting patterns. One approach is to mine multidimensional association rules from data. The traditional association rule mining relies on uniform support and confidence values which does not always yield interesting rules due to varied nature of data. This paper presents a novel approach to mine multidimensional association rules from dataset with varying support. The improved algorithm is being proposed to overcome missing aspect of tradition rule mining algorithms like Apriori.
Audit of the outcome of pregnancy in diabetic women in Soweto, South Africa, 1992–2002

Objective. To audit the outcome of pregnancy among diabetic black women in Soweto following the introduction of a specialised service. Design and methods. An analysis of patients' records was conducted for the period 1992–2002. Maternal characteristics, aspects of treatment and its complications, mode of delivery and perinatal outcome are reported. The incidence of postpartum glucose intolerance in women with gestational diabetes was assessed. Major outcomes from this study are compared with those of an earlier study conducted from 1983 to 1992. Results. A total of 733 diabetic pregnancies was managed over 11 years: 348 women had gestational diabetes, 172 had type 1 diabetes and 213 had type 2 diabetes. Insulin was used in all but 23 women. Mean (± standard deviation (SD)) capillary blood glucose levels varied between 5.7 (± 0.72) and 6.2 (± 0.95) mmol/l in the 3 groups. Severe maternal hypoglycaemia was most common in the type 1 diabetes group (14%). Mean (± SD) neonatal weight varied between 2 922.3 g (± 753) and 3 073.3 g (± 727). Caesarean section rates exceeded 60% in all 3 groups. Overall, 13.1% of women had hypertension, 31.3% of whom had proteinuric hypertension. There were no cases of progressive pre-eclampsia. The combined perinatal mortality (PMN) rate was 3.7%, compared with 15.6% in the ‘control’ group. Major congenital malformations occurred in 11 pregnancies (1.5%). There were 2 maternal deaths. Postpartum impaired glucose tolerance/diabetes occurred in 25.9% of women with gestational diabetes. Combining the 2 studies (1983–1992 and 1992–2002), 1 087 pregnancies were managed over 20 years using a similar protocol. There were no significant differences in major outcomes between the 2 studies. The overall PMN of 4.5% is significantly lower than that of the combined ‘control’ group (19.9%). Postpartum glucose intolerance was documented in 28.5% of women. Conclusions. The institution of a specialised service for pregnant diabetic women from Soweto for a sustained period of 20 years proved feasible and was of significant benefit. The interventions, centred around a diabetes nurse educator, were relatively simple and easy to implement. Late presentation/referral of patients remains a problem. Persistence of glucose intolerance postpartum in women with gestational diabetes was common and provides an opportunity for preventive measures to be introduced.