Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do market competition and financial pressure make banks perform well ? ( Preliminary version )

This paper examines the role of two external factors in generating improved productivity performance in banks. These are loan market competition and financial market pressure. The belief that competition improves company performance is widespread, and it does have some theoretical foundation. Financial pressure also plays a role in motivating organisational efficiency and growth. Financial pressure is generated when debt interest payments debt interests are high. Bank managers then have an incentive to provide high levels of effort in order to avoid the debilitating consequences of bankruptcy. We focus on a panel of Spanish banks over the years 1991 to 2001, using their published accounts. We take care of the crucial problem of potential endogeneity of explanatory variables by using GMM estimators proposed by Arellano and Bond (1991). Our results show that loan market competition has a positive and significant impact on performance. We have found also that interest payments normalised on the generated rents are positively related to future productivity growth. Finally, there is some evidence to suggest that the financial pressure can be substituted by competition. JEL Classification: D43, G21, G32, L25
Mixed Propagation for Image Retrieval

Dozens of image features have been proposed in recent decades, which could measure the similarity of images and promote the improvement of performance in image retrieval. Different features focus on different views of the image, where two image quite distant with one feature may close with another. In this paper, we attempt to integrate different measures together to improve the image retrieval accuracy. Main point of which is fusing several given measures into one and then propagating on the resulted data space. As different features are involved in the similarity measurement, it would help to retrieval more similar image for the query from the dataset. Experiment results on several image dataset show the benefit of the proposed algorithm.
Analytics-Based Solutions for Improving Alert Management Service for Enterprise Systems

Today's enterprise systems are continuously monitored for timely detection of behavioral anomalies. The tools for monitoring these systems generate alerts on observing abnormal conditions. These alerts are then acted upon by the service desk personnel for timely resolution of the problems. However, there are several drawbacks in today's alert management service for alert generation and resolution. Present approach of generating and analyzing alerts is highly manual, ad-hoc, and intuition-driven. The fixes are often temporary and ineffective thereby making the system unstable. We propose to replace this manual and intuition-based approach with an automated and analytics led approach. We present algorithms to detect duplicate alerts, infer inter-alert relationships, and derive temporal signature of alerts. We validate the proposed ideas by presenting a real-world case-study.
THE INTELLIGENT PIG BARN

Until now, production monitoring in pigs has mainly focused on growth, reproduction, feed consumption and mortality. However, in the daily management, pig producers also rely on additional observations related to animal behavior , e.g. in relation to climate regulations, and early intervention in case of productivity and welfare related problems, such as diarrhea, tail biting and fouling. In the ongoing PigIT research project it is hypothesized that a systematic placement of cheap sensors and cameras in the production pens combined with methodological developments to integrate the information from these sensors will enable automatic detection of behavioral patterns reflecting impaired production and welfare.
Concentration of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor After Intracameral Bevacizumab Injection in Eyes With Neovascular Glaucoma

Purpose To study the concentration of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the aqueous humor before and after intracameral injection of bevacizumab in eyes with neovascular glaucoma, and to detect the duration of an anti-VEGF effect of bevacizumab in the anterior chamber. Methods In this prospective interventional case series, 1.25 mg of bevacizumab was injected into the anterior chamber of five eyes in five neovascular glaucoma patients. Aqueous humor samples were obtained just before intracameral injection of bevacizumab and two weeks after injection. The concentrations of VEGF in the aqueous humor were measured using ELISA. To investigate corneal endothelial damage after intrecameral bevacizumab injection, specular microscopy was performed before injection and two weeks after injection. Slit lamp photo and iris fluorescent angiography was performed to determine the regression of iris neovascularization. Results After injection, substantial regression of neovascularization or fluorescein leakage was seen in all treated eyes. The VEGF concentrations in the aqueous humor in eyes with NVG were 1181.8±1248.3 pg/mL before intracameral injection of bevacizumab. Two weeks after injection, the VEGF concentrations decreased to 33.2±12.2 pg/mL (p=0.04, Wilcoxon signed rank test). There were no significant changes in IOP or corneal endothelial cells. Conclusions Intracameral bevacizumab injection can remarkably reduce iris neovascularization in neovascular glaucoma patients. VEGF levels were significantly decreased two weeks after injection and corneal toxicity was not observed during short term follow-up.
XSQ: A streaming XPath engine

We have implemented and released the XSQ system for evaluating XPath queries on streaming XML data. XSQ supports XPath features such as multiple predicates, closures, and aggregation, which pose interesting challenges for streaming evaluation. Our implementation is based on using a hierarchical arrangement of augmented finite state automata. A design goal of XSQ is buffering data for the least amount of time possible. We present a detailed experimental study that characterizes the performance of XSQ and related systems, and that illustrates the performance implications of XPath features such as closures.
Weaving Curriculum Connections in International Baccalaureate (IB) Schools

Abstract In this article we discuss how school leaders address challenges when implementing innovative international education curricula, namely International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. Specifically, we frame challenges in curriculum implementation of and transition between IB programs from a “disconnection” perspective. We have often noticed when innovative programs are parceled together without preparation and thrust at great speed at schools, they become disconnected. The hasty implementation of multiple IB programs simultaneously at a school also causes disconnection. Drawing on extensive interview data from principals, mid-level leaders, and teachers in five IB schools adopting multiple IB programs in Asia, we detail curriculum disconnection facing IB schools and how school leaders, including teacher leaders, address such challenges by weaving various disconnected points, namely instrumental, intellectual, cultural, professional, and communicative disconnections. Based on findings from the multisite case study, we argue that school leaders in the case of IB schools adopt a range of leadership strategies to weave disconnection points. We reframe the leadership strategies as two aspects of distributed leadership: distributed instructional leadership and teacher leadership. In conclusion, we suggest that a central facet for successful leadership of IB schools that adopt multiple IB programs is about finding, focusing, and facilitating ways to address disconnections in curriculum implementation of and transition between different IB programs.
In nite games on nitely coloured graphs with applications to automata on in nite trees

We examine a class of in nite two-person games on nitely coloured graphs. The main aim is to construct nite memory winning strategies for both players. This problem is motivated by applications to nite automata on in nite trees. A special attention is given to the exact amount of memory needed by the players for their winning strategies. Based on a previous work of Gurevich and Harrington and on subsequent improvements of McNaughton we propose a unique framework that allows to reestablish and to improve various results concerning memoryless strategies due to Emerson and Jutla, Mostowski, Klarlund. c © 1998—Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
Analysing policy change and continuity: physical education and school sport policy in England since 2010

ABSTRACT Prominent developments in English PE and school sport (PESS) policy across the period of Conservative-led governments since 2010 have not been empirically or comprehensively researched. In addressing this shortcoming, this study was uniquely underpinned by punctuated equilibrium theory in order to respond to long-standing difficulties of differentiating and explaining both policy change and continuity. Application of this theory benefited from the collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from ten elite interviewees, policy documents and searches of broadsheet newspapers and parliamentary records across a 15-year period. Overall, the ring-fencing of significant funding for PESS since 2013 indicates that successive Conservative-led governments maintained and further embedded the enhanced status of PESS that had initially emerged in the 1990s. On the other hand, significant modifications in PESS policy increasingly aligned it with health-related objectives and were implemented through a decentralised model that differed significantly from the standardised, top-down approach enacted by preceding Labour governments. It is argued that these policy changes represent a ‘policy punctuation’ which occurred across 2010 and 2013 when the attention of cabinet ministers was drawn to PESS as a result of a confluence of external events and dramatic spikes in wider media and political interest. Subsequently, a reconstituted but expanded coalition of key PESS policy actors has supported the re-establishment of ‘equilibrium’ and continuity in PESS policy. These findings demonstrate the broader importance of distinguishing the continuation of a relatively high status for PESS from the intermittent salience that it has at the highest levels of government. In-depth explanation of both a rare policy ‘window’ for PESS policy change and long-standing institutionalisation of policy continuity was also significantly enhanced by the utilisation of punctuated equilibrium theory, demonstrating its distinctive value for future studies of PESS and sport policy.
Conversion rate based bid adjustment for sponsored search

Advertisers use Sponsored Search to drive traffic to their site at a conversion rate and cost per conversion that provides value to them. However, very often advertisers bid at a constant price on a bundle of keywords, either for lack of enough data to fully optimize their bids at a keyword level, or indirectly by opting into Advanced Matching (AM) that allows an advertiser to reach a large number of queries while explicitly bidding only on a limited number. Then this single bid price reflects the return the advertiser gets from the full bundle. Under these conditions, the advertiser is competing too aggressively for some keyword auctions and with too low bids for others. In this paper, we propose a solution to improve the fairness of each keyword's bid prices within an AM bundle: adjusting the AM keyword bid by the ratio of its conversion rate to the conversion rate it would have reached had it been an Exact Match (EM). First we describe how we measure advertisers' conversion rates despite the opt-in nature of conversion tracking, and illustrate the need for bid adjustment in the context of AM. Then we present our approach to predict conversion rates in a robust manner. Our model uses a number of features capturing the quality of the match between the ad and the query. Then we describe how we adjust keyword bid prices to reflect their value to the advertiser thereby improving (1) the auction through fewer incorrectly high bids in the auction, (2) advertiser return through more auctions won by high value keywords and less by low value keywords, and (3) user satisfaction through higher conversion rate. Finally, we present experimental results from our live system.
Using data aggregation to prolong the lifetime of wide-area wireless sensor networks

The present paper presents a solution for prolonging the battery life for motes within a wide-area wireless sensor network (WSN). In this particulars networks, the distances between motes and base stations are over the motepsilas communication range, and motes located between sinks and base station are commonly used both as regular motes and repeaters. This diminishes their energetic autonomy and increases lifecycle maintenance costs. The power constraint has a great impact on the functioning of wireless sensor networks; the battery life makes the data communication very high-priced and restricts the amount of transferred data. A study case is performed considering a wide-area WSN functioning in different modes, with no data aggregation and then using in-network data aggregation.
Bearing Witness? Polar Bears as Icons for Climate Change Communication in National Geographic

ABSTRACT This article investigates how polar bears were established as icons of climate change in the popular science magazine National Geographic. In a multistep process, anthropomorphized depictions first established polar bears as subjects of identification. Then, polar bears were visually connected to the endangered Arctic. Finally, they emerged as ambassadors of a threatened ecosystem and icons of climate change. I highlight the wider political contexts of this process of iconization and the semiotic and cultural resources on which it draws, showing what kind of climate change communication the polar bear icon enables or inhibits. The icon lends itself to being deployed in visual communication strategies creating personal concern and public awareness for climate change. At the same time, the icon fosters an individualized, emotionalized, and localized account of climate change but does not make its wider causes visible.
Use of Intermittent Bolus Erector Spinae Plane (ESP) Block for Analgesia In Open Cholecystectomy – A Case Report

Ultrasound-guided erector spinae plane (ESP) block has been first described by Forero as an analgesia technique for thoracic neuropathic pain. [1] It offers good postoperative analgesia for thoracic/breast surgery with injection at the T5 level. [2] Some authors suggested that ESP block has an analgesic effect not only on somatic but also on visceral pain. Local anesthesia probably spreads toward the paravertebral space affecting the ventral rami and rami communicantes that include sympathetic nerve fibers. [1,3] Bilateral ESP blocks at the lower level (T8) have been found to be effective as thoracic epidural analgesia for major abdominal surgery in some case reports. [3,4] Multiple other case reports used T7 as an optimal point of injection for various, mostly laparoscopic, abdominal procedures. [2–5]
On commenting behavior of Facebook users

Facebook treats friends as a single homogeneous group even though people on Facebook are possibly acquainted with diverse group of individuals and perceive their friends as representatives of different groups. It is a common observation that people tend to select friends with similar characteristics or individuals are likely to change their attributes to conform to their friends. In this measurement study we quantify the extension of this behavior on Facebook. We measure the probability with which a friend belonging to a particular group of friends will or will not comment on a post that has already received comments from other friends belonging/not belonging to his own circle of friends. To this end we collected an original data set of Facebook profiles of 50 volunteers. Our data analysis shows that Facebook users are influenced in their choice of posting comments on friends' wall posts, based on whether or not they are acquainted with the people that left earlier comments. Identification of such behavioral nuances can be helpful in improving the user interface design of online social networks.
Tailorability in the Context of E-Government Information Systems:

The ever changing environment information systems model, and in particular e-government ones, intensifies the need for systems that are able to easily, efficiently and transparently adapt to changing environments. Accommodating unanticipated changes implies that systems must be able to adapt to changes occurring in and evolve in step with their changing environment. Adaptation is concerned with monitoring, analysing and understanding the patterns of the user’s interaction with the system. Similarly, an information system is said to be evolutionary if it can be purposefully used in a dynamic environment. E-government information systems, in virtue of their nature and function, are driven by the need to adapt and evolve. This suggests that the design and implementation of such systems must provide the necessary infrastructure for evolution and adaptability. In other words, egovernment information systems must abide to the Tailorable Information Systems paradigm. In this work we present a case study for the development of a Tailorable e-government information system.
The Islamic Values Representations of Female Main Character in Novels by Habiburrahman El-Shirazy

Habiburrahman El-Shirazy’s novel presence reveals aesthetic values and is expected to realize its universal values in social life, as for example the values of religion, education, moral, ethic, social, and etc. His works contain religious valued endeavors, to present Islamic teaching instilled into each character, both male and female. The problems are how the attitude of the main female character is, how Islamic values of the novels is, and how to represent Islamic teachings of the novel. The research method used covers extrinsic approach by combining the literature and its thought (Wellek and Austin Warren), data and other data sources, its data collection, validity, and technique of data analyzing. The findings are the attitude of the main character is pious, obedient to her husband, parents, eager to study, responsible, generous, and handy. The values are found are aqidah, the worship values, its values and Islamic teaching representations are; Aqidah (ilahiyat, prophecy, ruhaniyat, samiyat), syariat (mahdah worships dan ghairu mahdah worships), Akhlak (the righteous attitude).
Quadtree decision for depth intra coding in 3D-HEVC by good feature

3D-HEVC is a good coding solution for multi-view video plus depth data. It achieves good coding performance of synthesized views. However, depth intra coding brings unbearable complexity, which is the most urgent issue to be solved for the practical applications. Typically, depth maps have a good feature of structure or less texture compared with natural videos. Therefore, in this paper, a fast depth intra coding algorithm is proposed to speed up the quadtree decision by the good feature-corner point (CP). The proposed algorithm can adaptively extract CPs and preallocate the depth level of coding quadtree. The large size of coding units (CUs) can be skipped for blocks, which have higher predicted depth level. On the contrary, the blocks, with lower predicted depth level, do not check the smaller size of CUs. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can provide about 41% time reduction while maintaining the BD performance.
Expressions of Indigenous rights and self-determination from the ground up: A Yawuru example

While recognition is one way self-determination for indigenous peoples can be enacted, the processes and models of recognition are fraught and complicated (Coulthard 2014). Additionally, the act and process of recognition for indigenous peoples tends to occur within existing dominant Western frameworks and is imbued in power relations; therefore, the extent to which recognition may effectively address the issues of structural injustice remains questionable (Fraser & Honneth 2003, Andersen 2014, Coulthard 2014). One of the challenges in enabling self-determination for Australia’s Indigenous peoples stems from the increasing influence of neoliberalism in Indigenous policy (Altman 2007, Humpage 2008, Howard-Wagner 2010).
Quantile Regression Estimates of Confidence Intervals for WASDE Price Forecasts

This study uses quantile regressions to estimate historical forecast error distributions for WASDE forecasts of corn, soybean, and wheat prices, and then compute confidence limits for the forecasts based on the empirical distributions. Quantile regressions with fit errors expressed as a function of forecast lead time are consistent with theoretical forecast variance expressions while avoiding assumptions of normality and optimality. Based on out-of-sample accuracy tests over 1995/96â€“2006/07, quantile regression methods produced intervals consistent with the target confidence level. Overall, this study demonstrates that empirical approaches may be used to construct accurate confidence intervals for WASDE corn, soybean, and wheat price forecasts.
Robust beamforming based on convex programming with sidelobe and signal direction mismatch control

The performance of Beamforming has been significantly improved in antenna array signal processing during recent years. To suppress high sidelobe levels of output beampattern and signal direction mismatches, some notable optimization techniques have been developed. In this paper, an improved convex optimization problem is introduced, which minimizes beamformer output power via using a modified objective function. In addition, to increase the convexity of the proposed approach, an ℓ1-norm constraint is applied to the main problem in order to considerably nullify the interference signals. Moreover, the proposed method effectively deals with steering vector mismatch errors. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method over the other robust beamforming methods.
AutoFlow: An automatic debugging tool for AspectJ software

Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is gaining popularity with the wider adoption of languages such as AspectJ. During AspectJ software evolution, when regression tests fail, it may be tedious for programmers to find out the failure-inducing changes by manually inspecting all code editing. To eliminate the expensive effort spent on debugging, we developed AutoFlow, an automatic debugging tool for AspectJ software. AutoFlow integrates the potential of delta debugging algorithm with the benefit of change impact analysis to narrow down the search for faulty changes. It first uses change impact analysis to identify a subset of responsible changes for a failed test, then ranks these changes according to our proposed heuristic (indicating the likelihood that they may have contributed to the failure), and finally employs an improved delta debugging algorithm to determine a minimal set of faulty changes. The main feature of AutoFlow is that it can automatically reduce a large portion of irrelevant changes in an early phase, and then locate faulty changes effectively.