Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Volatility Scaling in Foreign Exchange Markets

When distributions are non-Gaussian or display linear dependence it may not be appropriate to annualise the risk coefficient determined by the linear rescaling of the variance from other time intervals. This paper investigates the scaling relationships for daily spot foreign currency returns: the Deutsche mark-U.S. dollar (DMK/USD), the Swiss franc-USD (SWF/USD), the Japanese yen-USD (JPY/USD), and the English pound-USD (GBP/USD), from February 1985 to May 1998. We find that all four series were non-Gaussian and displayed similar scaling properties with the estimated variance, based upon a scaling at the square root of time, significantly underestimating the actual level of risk predicted from a normal distribution. The economic implications of these results were then established by estimating the premiums on a series of foreign currency options using a variation of a Black-Scholes model with varying strike prices. Based on a 180 day maturity, the results suggested that the inappropriate scaling of risk underestimated the price of call and put options for DMK/USD, SWF/USD and JPY/USD, but not for GBP/USD.
Lean-Proteome Strains – Next Step in Metabolic Engineering

Rapid development of high-throughput -omics (e.g., proteomics) and genetic engineering technologies together with an array of new metabolic modeling tools during this century has led to the emergence of new fields of biological research termed systems biology and synthetic biology. The successful exploitation of these developments is evidenced by the creation of increasing number of genetically engineered recombinant cells with superior characteristics (Jantama et al., 2008; Becker et al., 2011) or totally novel functions (Nakamura and Whited, 2003; Yim et al., 2011; Paddon et al., 2013) for diverse sectors such as chemicals and healthcare (Huang et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2012; Sun and Alper, 2014). However, there exists a significant gap in bioprocess performance between studies of the literature and the requirements for an industrially feasible bioprocess for chemical production (Van Dien, 2013). Overall bioprocess performance [productivity (gram/liter/hour), titer (gram/liter) etc.] has to be increased further for successful industrial-scale commercialization to drive the shift from fossil fuel to bioprocess-based chemical production and cost-effective production of novel drugs (Van Dien, 2013). Hence, there is great need for novel approaches addressing these key challenges in chemical and healthcare sectors.
The Prosodic and Paralinguistic Features of Reading and Telling Stories

Four teachers read and told preschool children well-known stories which were recorded. Two composite tapes were prepared from the recordings. Ten-second sections of tape were spliced together to form 112 randomly intermixed examples of each teacher reading and telling stories to two groups of children. Fifty-six items were treated by a low-pass filter which removed all content information but preserved prosodic and paralinguistic information. Two groups of 11 adult subjects each judged whether the segment was an example of reading or telling. For both filtered and unfiltered speech, the subjects could accurately discriminate reading from telling; they were more accurate on the unfiltered portions of the tape. A qualitative analysis of items easy and difficult to judge correctly, indicated a number of variables that were probably instrumental in making the reading-telling distinction. These variables were coded from the original unfiltered tapes. Reading appears to be more rapid and free of hesitations, which can be explained by story telling being a cognitively creative task. An important stylistic variant is the placement of the speaker-tag before or after a quotation. The tag after the quote is a literary form almost never used in telling stories; the tag before the quote is used both in reading and telling.
Robust Feature Extraction for Speech Recognition by Enhancing Auditory Spectrum

The goal of this work is to improve the robustness of speech recognition systems in additive noise and real-time reverberant environments. In this paper we present a compressive gammachirp filter-bank-based feature extractor that incorporates a method for the enhancement of auditory spectrum and a short-time feature normalization technique, which, by adjusting the scale and mean of cepstral features, reduces the difference of cepstra between the training and test environments. For performance evaluation, in the context of speech recognition, of the proposed feature extractor we use the standard noisy AURORA-2 corpus and the meeting recorder digits (MRDs) subset of the AURORA-5 corpus, which represent additive noise and reverberant acoustic conditions, respectively. The ETSI advanced front-end (ETSI-AFE), the recently proposed power normalized cepstral coefficients (PNCC) and conventional MFCC features are used for comparison purposes. Experimental speech recognition results depict that the proposed method is robust against both additive and reverberant environments. The proposed method provides comparable results to that of ESTI-AFE and PNCC on the AURORA-2 corpus and provides considerable improvements with respect to the other feature extractors on the AURORA-5 corpus.
Low-Grade Glioma Segmentation Based on CNN with Fully Connected CRF

This work proposed a novel automatic three-dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) segmentation method which would be widely used in the clinical diagnosis of the most common and aggressive brain tumor, namely, glioma. The method combined a multipathway convolutional neural network (CNN) and fully connected conditional random field (CRF). Firstly, 3D information was introduced into the CNN which makes more accurate recognition of glioma with low contrast. Then, fully connected CRF was added as a postprocessing step which purposed more delicate delineation of glioma boundary. The method was applied to T2flair MRI images of 160 low-grade glioma patients. With 59 cases of data training and manual segmentation as the ground truth, the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) of our method was 0.85 for the test set of 101 MRI images. The results of our method were better than those of another state-of-the-art CNN method, which gained the DSC of 0.76 for the same dataset. It proved that our method could produce better results for the segmentation of low-grade gliomas.
Generating Slide Skeletons based on Expression Styles for Presentation Contents

By using PowerPoint or Keynote that can effectively create attractive presentation slides, a presentation-based communication environment can now be created in which people can use these presentation slides to exchange and discuss ideas together. However, because it is necessary to prepare many slides to enable audiences to understand the content, authors need to prepare the best possible slides. Our skeleton generation method is designed to help authors to prepare slides with ease by constructing slide layouts based on the expression styles of words from the text in the textbooks they use. To do this, we analyze the expression styles of the words presented in the slides; our method can then extract context-role of the words by the differences between the words in the texts and their slides. To generate skeletons for slides from target texts in a textbook, our method derives the expression styles of the words from pre-existing texts and their slides. Finally, it generates slide skeletons by using the derived expression styles of the corresponding words from the target texts arranged in slides, which are the same as the layouts of pre-existing slides. We also present the results of an evaluation of the method’s effectiveness. Keyword e-Learning, Skeleton generation, Expression styles, Slide making support
A Statistical Spanish-Catalan Translator: A Preliminary Version

A system for automatic text translation between two similar languages, Spanish–Catalan, is exposed. A statistical approach has been used to develop a probabilit y model of the translation process. We describe how the corpus has been obtained and we introduce a new algorithm for aligning parallel texts, based on Programming Dynamic. Two different approaches have been utili zed for the search of the best translation. Finally, some preliminary results are given.
Marginal and Internal Fit of CAD/CAM and Slip-Cast Made Zirconia Copings

Background and aims CAD/CAM systems facilitate the use of zirconia substructure materials for all-ceramic copings. This in vitro study investigated the marginal and internal fit of zirconia copings made with CAD/CAM system and slip-casting method. Materials and methods Sixteen CAD/CAM made zirconia copings and 16 slip-cast made zirconia copings were fabri-cated and cemented with glass-ionomer cement to their respective master abutment models, and thickness of the cement layer was measured at specific measuring points with stereomicroscope. Results In the left wall, the mean axial internal gap was greater in group one than group two (62.49 vs. 48.14) (P =0.007), in the right wall the mean axial internal gap was greater in group one than group two (44.87 vs. 40.91) (P = 0.465). The oc-clusal internal gap was greater in group one than group two (118.81 vs. 102.11) (P =0.423). The mean marginal gap also was greater in group one than group two (46.67 vs. 44.29) (P = 0.863). The differences in marginal fit between these two methods were not statistically significant, except for left axial internal gap that was significantly greater in the CAD/CAM system than conventional slip-cast technique (P =0.007). Conclusion It was concluded that this CAD/CAM system can compete well with conventional systems for clinical fit, and can achieve good in vitro marginal fit.
Type 2 Diabetes–Associated K+ Channel TALK-1 Modulates β-Cell Electrical Excitability, Second-Phase Insulin Secretion, and Glucose Homeostasis

Two-pore domain K+ (K2P) channels play an important role in tuning β-cell glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS). The K2P channel TWIK-related alkaline pH-activated K2P (TALK)-1 is linked to type 2 diabetes risk through a coding sequence polymorphism (rs1535500); however, its physiological function has remained elusive. Here, we show that TALK-1 channels are expressed in mouse and human β-cells, where they serve as key regulators of electrical excitability and GSIS. We find that the rs1535500 polymorphism, which results in an alanine-to-glutamate substitution in the C-terminus of human TALK-1, increases channel activity. Genetic ablation of TALK-1 results in β-cell membrane potential depolarization, increased islet Ca2+ influx, and enhanced second-phase GSIS. Moreover, mice lacking TALK-1 channels are resistant to high-fat diet–induced elevations in fasting glycemia. These findings reveal TALK-1 channels as important modulators of second-phase insulin secretion and suggest a clinically relevant mechanism for rs1535500, which may increase type 2 diabetes risk by limiting GSIS.
Techniques for Fast Shared Memory Switches

-- Shared memory is commonly used to build output queued (OQ) switches. An OQ switch is known to maximize throughput, minimize delay and can offer QoS guarantees. However it is generally believed that high capacity switches cannot be built from shared memory switches because the requirements on the memory size, memory bandwidth and memory access time increase linearly with the line rate and the number of ports . In this paper, we ask the following question: Is it possible to build a high-speed shared memory switch in which the individual memories (in this case, DRAMs) operate at slower than the line rate? We show that this is indeed possible i.e. a shared memory switch with a specific “conflict free DRAM memory management algorithm” (CFD-MMA) can emulate a first-come-first-served OQ switch if each memory operates at a rate of approximately , where is the number of DRAMs used in parallel. We also show that the switch can support qualities of service, if the memories operate at a rate of . To enable this, we introduce a small fixed sized co-ordination buffer of size and prove that the shared memory switch can emulate a OQ switch supporting QoS within a relative delay bound of time slots.
Behavioral Sport Psychology Consulting: A Review of Some Practice Concerns and Recommendations

This review addresses several contemporary issues in behavioral sport psychology which have relevance for professionals conducting intervention with athletes and coaches. It discusses cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and applied behavior analysis (ABA) disciplines, noting similarities and the need for further convergence in practice and research. Other areas emphasized in the review are intervention integrity, social validity assessment, coach-effectiveness training, and marketing services. An additional topic is the role of behavioral sport psychology professionals in translating empirically supported interventions and instructional procedures to general audiences concerned about exercise, health promotion, and youth athletes. Several forms and checklists for obtaining data and illustrating recommendations accompany the review.
Lift-and-project for 0 – 1 programming via algebraic geometry

Recently, tools from algebraic geometry have been successfully applied to develop solution schemes for new classes of optimization problems. A central idea in these constructions is to express a polynomial that is positive on a given domain in terms of polynomials of higher degree so that its positivity is readily revealed. This resembles the “lifting” phase of the lift-and-project procedures for 0–1 programming. We propose an enhancement to these solution schemes via a construction that is reminiscent of the “projecting” phase of the lift-and-project procedures. Our construction applies to domains that can be represented as the intersection of a set and an affine variety. To illustrate the power of our approach, we provide novel derivations of some of the lift-and-project procedures for 0–1 programming due to Balas, Ceria and Cornuéjols; Sherali and Adams; Lovász and Schrijver; and Lasserre. These derivations add new insight into this interesting subject, and suggest a number of variations and extensions. ∗Supported by NSF grants CCR-0092655 and DMI-0098427. lzuluaga@andrew.cmu. edu †Supported by NSF grant CCR-0092655. jvera@andrew.cmu. edu ‡Supported by NSF grant CCR-0092655. jfp@andrew.cmu. edu
Evaluation of upper extremity movement characteristics during standardized pediatric functional assessment with a Kinect®-based markerless motion analysis system

A recently developed and evaluated upper extremity (UE) markerless motion analysis system based on the Microsoft® Kinect® has potential for improving functional assessment of patients with hemiplegic cerebral palsy. 12 typically-developing adolescents ages 12-17 were evaluated using both the Kinect-based system and the Shriners Hospitals for Children Upper Extremity Evaluation (SHUEE), a validated measure of UE motion. The study established population means of UE kinematic parameters for each activity. Statistical correlation analysis was used to identify key kinematic metrics used to develop automatic scoring algorithms. The Kinect motion analysis platform is technically sound and can be applied to standardized task-based UE evaluation while providing enhanced sensitivity in clinical analysis and automation through scoring algorithms.
Evaluation of Two New Chromogenic Media, CHROMagar MRSA and S. aureus ID, for Identifying Staphylococcus aureus and Screening Methicillin-Resistant S. aureus

ABSTRACT Thirty-nine methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates with diverse genetic backgrounds and two reference strains were correctly identified as S. aureus on CHROMagar MRSA and S. aureus ID media. Growth inhibition on CHROMagar MRSA was noted. A combination of cefoxitin disk and S. aureus ID was found suitable for rapid MRSA screening.
Evaluation of pneumatic cylinder actuators for hand prostheses

DC motors are currently the preferred actuation method for externally powered hand prostheses. However, they are often heavy and large, which limits the number of actuators that can be integrated into the prosthesis. Alternative actuation methods are being researched, but have not yet found wide application. In this paper, a thin-walled pneumatic cylinder actuator is implemented to move a single-DOF prosthetic hand. Its performance is compared to that of a commercially available DC motor. Both systems are evaluated on speed, responsiveness, and energy capacity. Other properties such as size and mass are also taken into account. While the pneumatic cylinder is capable of high speeds and forces while remaining lightweight, quiet and small, it can prove difficult to control. Improvements to the cylinder design and valve system are recommended, in order to develop the potential of pneumatic cylinder actuators in modern multifunctional hand prostheses.
Robust median filtering forensics based on the autoregressive model of median filtered residual

One important aspect of multimedia forensics is exposing an image's processing history. Median filtering is a popular noise removal and image enhancement tool. It is also an effective tool in anti-forensics recently. An image is usually saved in a compressed format such as the JPEG format. The forensic detection of median filtering from a JPEG compressed image remains challenging, because typical filter characteristics are suppressed by JPEG quantization and blocking artifacts. In this paper, we introduce a robust median filtering detection scheme based on the autoregressive model of median filtered residual. Median filtering is first applied on a test image and the difference between the initial image and the filtered output image is called the median filtered residual (MFR). The MFR is used as the forensic fingerprint. Thus, the interference from the image edge and texture, which is regarded as a limitation of the existing forensic methods, can be reduced. Because the overlapped window filtering introduces correlation among the pixels of MFR, an autoregressive (AR) model of the MFR is calculated and the AR coefficients are used by a support vector machine (SVM) for classification. Experimental results show that the proposed median filtering detection method is very robust to JPEG post-compression with a quality factor as low as 30. It distinguishes well between median filtering and other manipulations, such as Gaussian filtering, average filtering, and rescaling and performs well on low-resolution images of size 32 × 32. The proposed method achieves not only much better performance than the existing state-of-the-art methods, but also has very small dimension of feature, i.e., 10-D.
Fluid-solid equilibrium of a charged hard-sphere model.

The fluid-solid equilibrium of a system made of charged hard spheres with positive and negative ions of the same size is considered. At high temperatures freezing occurs in a substitutionally disordered close packed structure, the face centered cubic solid ~fcc! At low temperatures freezing occurs in the ordered cesium chloride structure ~CsCl! As the latter solid coexists with the fcc structure at high densities, two triple points exist on the phase diagram. By using computer simulation we determine the precise location of both triple points. In the first of them, vapor, liquid, and solid ~CsCl! are in equilibrium at T* 5T/@q 2 /(ske)#50.0225, where q is the charge of the ions, s their diameters, k the Boltzmann constant, and e the dielectric constant. In the other triple point, occurring at T*50.24, the three coexisting phases are the fluid, a CsCl solid, and the fcc solid. The vapor-liquid-solid triple point temperature is found to be about one-third of the critical temperature, in good agreement with the experimental ratio for a number of molten salts. An implementation of the cell theory for the solid phases of charged hard spheres is presented. It is shown that this simple theory provides a reasonable description of the properties of solid charged hard spheres. When the theory is combined with an accurate theory for the fluid phase a very satisfactory description of the phase diagram of charged hard spheres is obtained. The cell theory predictions are better than those recently reported using a density functional scheme. @S1063-651X~96! 05009-X#
A Study of Japanese and Australian Children's Respect for Others

A comparison was made between Japanese and Australian children, aged 11-12 years, in endorsement of rules governing respect for others. The children completed two versions of a questionnaire: prescriptive and self-descriptive. They indicated for six target persons-father, mother, teacher, best friend, adult neighbor, and same-age neighbor-their endorsement of seven rules, including greet (the person) respectfully, do what (the person) tells you, and stick up for (the person). Contrary to prediction, Australian children endorsed and reported greater respect for all target persons than did Japanese children. However, Japanese children showed greater correspondence between endorsed and self-reported respect than did Australian children, with the exception of teacher. Japanese children also differentiated more than Australian children in their respect for parents and teacher compared with friends and neighbors. These findings suggest that Japanese social rules governing respect are highly person and situation related, consistent with the strong distinction between in group and out group relations in collectivist cultures. The strength and salience of family in group relations, in which lapses in politeness are tolerated, may explain the lower levels of respect endorsed and reported by Japanese children.
Before Home Start: Notes toward a History of Parent Education in America, 1897-1929

Hailed as an entirely new approach to addressing developmental deprivation in children, parent education to upgrade child-care practices in the home shows signs of becoming the pet educational reform of the 1970s. But is parent education as new as its proponents claim? In this article, Steven L. Schlossman notes that it is not and traces part of its long history in this country. He concentrates primarily on the development of the first nationwide parent-education organization, which became the PTA, and on the contributions of behavorial science to its mission. From an initial emphasis on changing society by organizing mothers of the nation in common cause, the PTA—joined by other groups—changed in the 1920s to become a movement of and for the middle class. Schlossman explores this evolution, concluding that current policy on parent education will be much the poorer for ignoring this history, that the value choices in behavioral science must be made clear, and that current efforts in parent education—while.