Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Kernel Density Estimation Clustering Algorithm with an Application in Characterizing Volatility Smiles

An algorithm is devised for clustering observations based on the densities of points within each individual observations. The Kernel Density Estimation Clustering Algorithm (KCA) performs a search on the graph of the observations' group memberships, where group memberships determines the KDEs that in turn drive changes in the objective function. Option pricing theory is used to demonstrate the utility of the algorithm. Volatility smiles, 2- dimensional plots relating option strike prices and their implied volatilities, are the basis for grouping options.
The Effects of Price Elasticity Dynamics on a Firm’s Profit

This paper studies the dynamic behavior of price elasticity and its effects on the overall profit. Although price elasticity has a significant effect on sales, its dynamics have not been examined so far in pricing models. In this paper, a simple pricing model is suggested in which, price elasticity is considered dynamic. The suggested pricing model is concerned with a monopolist that its objective is to maximize profit by determining the optimal price. Dynamics of price elasticity is described by a quadratic model, with product lifetime as the single dependent variable. By solving the model using the theory of optimal control, a system of differential equations is obtained which can be used to find the optimal price trajectory. Finally, an example is provided to show how the dynamic behavior of price elasticity can influence the firm's overall profit.
The Natural History and Outcomes of the Patients with Carcinosarcoma Involving Kidney and Renal Pelvis

Background. The objective of this paper was to examine the epidemiology, natural history, and prognostic factors of carcinosarcoma of the kidney and renal pelvis (CSKP) using population-based registry. Patients and Methods. Forty-three patients with CSKP, diagnosed between January 1973 and December 2007, were identified from the national Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database and reviewed. Results. 79% of all patients with known SEER stage were classified as having regional or distant stage; almost all the patients with known histology grade had poorly or undifferentiated histology. The median cancer specific survival was 6 months (95% CI 4–9). The 1-year cancer-specific survival rate for entire cohort was 30.2%. There were no differences in terms of age at diagnosis, histological grade, tumor stage on presentation, and frequency of nephrectomy between carcinosarcoma of kidney (CSK) or renal pelvis (CSP). In multivariate analysis, age at diagnosis, tumor stage, and year of diagnosis were found to be significant predictors for cancer-specific survival. Conclusion. CSKP commonly presented as high-grade, advanced stage disease, and was associated with a poor prognosis regardless of location.
65nm cmos technology for low power applications

This paper presents a 65nm low power technology offering a dual gate oxide process, multiple Vt devices at a nominal operating voltage of 1.2V, a nine level hierarchical Cu interconnect back-end of line process with low k dielectrics and 0.676mum2 and 0.54mum 2 SRAM cells, optimized for performance and density, respectively. The key focus of this technology has been low cost, process simplicity and power reduction. A gate dielectric with an nfet leakage current as low as 15pA/mum and with exceptional reliability characteristics has been demonstrated. Moreover, competitive drive current has been achieved, 725/343muA/mum at an off current of 7nA/mum for n/pfets at nominal voltage. A pfet performance enhancement of an additional 13% at 7nA/mum off current was achieved by using mobility enhancement techniques without adding process complexity. An optimized NiSi process and high angle, low dose halo implants contribute to the reduced junction leakage and GIDL current
Understanding Users' Interaction Behavior with an Intelligent Educational Game: Prime Climb

This paper presents work on applying clustering and association rule mining techniques to mine users behavior in interacting with an intelligent educational game, Prime Climb. Through such behavior discovery, frequent patterns of interaction which characterize different groups of students with similar interaction styles are identified. The relation between the extracted patterns and the average domain knowledge of students in each group is investigated. The results show that the students with significantly higher prior knowledge about the domain behave differently from those with lower prior knowledge as they play the game and that pattern could be identified early during the interactions.
Walking with the Comrades

Last month, quietly, unannounced, Arundhati Roy decided to visit the forbidding and forbidden precincts of Central India’s Dandakaranya Forests, home to a melange of tribespeople many of whom have taken up arms to protect their people against state-backed marauders and exploiters. She recorded in considerable detail the first face-to-face journalistic “encounter” with armed guerillas, their families and comrades, for which she combed the forests for weeks at personal risk. This essay was published on Friday in Delhi’s Outlook magazine. Arundhati Roy made the pictures in this 20,000 word essay available exclusively to Dawn.
Coping and metabolic syndrome indicators in urban black South African men: the SA BPA study

Summary Urbanisation is associated with obesity, hypertension and development of the metabolic syndrome (MS). We aimed to assess the use of different coping styles and their influence on increases in MS indicators and target end-organ damage (TOD) in urban black African men. A sample of 53 men was classified as clear high active (AC, n = 30) or passive coping (PC, n = 23) responders, using the Amirkhan African validated coping style indicator. Blood pressure (BP) was recorded with an aneroid sphygmomanometer and waist circumference (WC) was determined. Carotid intima–media thickness (CIMT) and microalbuminuria were analysed to determine TOD. Fasting serum and eight-hour urine samples revealed elevated MS indicators in AC men. Strong associations existed between MS indicators and TOD in AC but not PC men. To conclude, only BP and seeking social support were positively associated with TOD in urban PC African men, while in urban AC African men, most MS indicators were positively associated with TOD, i.e. sub-clinical atherosclerosis and renal impairment.
Partitioning of the Golgi Apparatus during Mitosis in Living HeLa Cells

The Golgi apparatus of HeLa cells was fluorescently tagged with a green fluorescent protein (GFP), localized by attachment to the NH2-terminal retention signal of N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase I (NAGT I). The location was confirmed by immunogold and immunofluorescence microscopy using a variety of Golgi markers. The behavior of the fluorescent Golgi marker was observed in fixed and living mitotic cells using confocal microscopy. By metaphase, cells contained a constant number of Golgi fragments dispersed throughout the cytoplasm. Conventional and cryoimmunoelectron microscopy showed that the NAGT I–GFP chimera (NAGFP)-positive fragments were tubulo-vesicular mitotic Golgi clusters. Mitotic conversion of Golgi stacks into mitotic clusters had surprisingly little effect on the polarity of Golgi membrane markers at the level of fluorescence microscopy. In living cells, there was little self-directed movement of the clusters in the period from metaphase to early telophase. In late telophase, the Golgi ribbon began to be reformed by a dynamic process of congregation and tubulation of the newly inherited Golgi fragments. The accuracy of partitioning the NAGFP-tagged Golgi was found to exceed that expected for a stochastic partitioning process. The results provide direct evidence for mitotic clusters as the unit of partitioning and suggest that precise regulation of the number, position, and compartmentation of mitotic membranes is a critical feature for the ordered inheritance of the Golgi apparatus.
A Novel Disparity Refinement Method Based on Semi-Global Matching Algorithm

Depth information can be obtained using stereo matching algorithms, which compute the horizontal displacement (disparity) of the corresponding points and convert to depth information using the triangular relation. However, the matching process is challenging with presence of textureless regions. This paper proposes a novel disparity refinement method for stereo matching based on Semi-global Matching (SGM) algorithm for texture less images. To be brief, the SGM algorithm is a high-performance matching algorithm of a stereo image pair and it reaches a trade off between matching quality and computing complexity. The main contribution comes from the improvement of matching quality on texture less regions. At the end of SGM, a right-to-left consistency check is performed to remove the invalid pixels in the disparity map. The proposed method is added after the right-to-left consistent check. We assume that the texture less regions in the original stereo pairs are planar. We employ edge detection to extract the textureless regions. The fitting method is employed in horizontal and vertical directions respectively. If the distance of two adjacent edge pixels is sufficiently large, the corresponding line segment will be considered as texturelss. For every texturelss line segment, the RANSAC algorithm is performed on the corresponding line segment in the disparity map. We use the well-known Middlebury dataset to compare our method with the normal SGM and other matching algorithms. It shows that our method performs well for most texture less stereo pairs.
A dialog control strategy based on the reliability of speech recognition

This paper considers a dialog control strategy based on the reliability of speech recognition. The spoken dialog system using this strategy accepts an utterance of the user if the reliability is high, while it rejects the utterance and asks the user to speak again (the basic strategy), or confirms the content of the utterance if the reliability is low. The purpose of this paper is to estimate two quantities P/sub ac/ and N, given the performance of the speech recognizer used in a dialog system. P/sub ac/ is the probability that information included in the user's utterance is conveyed to the system correctly, and N is the average number of turns taken between the user and the system until the subdialog on the user's first utterance terminates. The analysis has proven that the direct confirmation can increase P/sub ac/ and the indirect confirmation can reduce N in comparison with the basic strategy. The paper also reported a numerical evaluation of the dialog control strategy conducted by using a real speech recognition system.
Chromosome Loss Followed by Duplication Is the Major Mechanism of Spontaneous Mating-Type Locus Homozygosis in Candida albicans

Candida albicans, which is diploid, possesses a single mating-type (MTL) locus on chromosome 5, which is normally heterozygous (a/α). To mate, C. albicans must undergo MTL homozygosis to a/a or α/α. Three possible mechanisms may be used in this process, mitotic recombination, gene conversion, or loss of one chromosome 5 homolog, followed by duplication of the retained homolog. To distinguish among these mechanisms, 16 spontaneous a/a and α/α derivatives were cloned from four natural a/α strains, P37037, P37039, P75063, and P34048, grown on nutrient agar. Eighteen polymorphic (heterozygous) markers were identified on chromosome 5, 6 to the left and 12 to the right of the MTL locus. These markers were then analyzed in MTL-homozygous derivatives of the four natural a/α strains to distinguish among the three mechanisms of homozygosis. An analysis of polymorphisms on chromosomes 1, 2, and R excluded meiosis as a mechanism of MTL homozygosis. The results demonstrate that while mitotic recombination was the mechanism for homozygosis in one offspring, loss of one chromosome 5 homolog followed by duplication of the retained homolog was the mechanism in the remaining 15 offspring, indicating that the latter mechanism is the most common in the spontaneous generation of MTL homozygotes in natural strains of C. albicans in culture.
Error analysis in strapdown INS for aircraft assembly lines

This work proposes a methodology for assessing the use of commercial inertial measurement units in manual part alignment operations with high precision requirements, found in aircraft assembly lines. The underlying application is a situation where two separate parts must be mounted at different locations within a facility, guaranteeing a precise angular alignment between them. If, for construction reasons, there is no direct sight between both elements, optical methods must be ruled out and the problem can be tackled by means of inclinometers. However, their precision are often limited compared to standard requirements in aeronautics applications. In this paper we propose a method based on two inertial navigation systems, and provide the tools necessary for determining the precision requirements for the gyroscopes and IMUs involved, based on error dynamics analysis and simulation.
Nonlinear Mixed Effects Classes And Methods For S

We describe extensions to the nonlinear modeling facilities in release 3 of S and Splus. These extensions provide classesand methods for fitting and analyzing nonlinear mixed effects models with the two-stage estimation method described by Lindstrom and Bates (1990). They are implemented in a combination of S and C code and complement the classes and methods for the linear mixed effects model that we previously contributed to the StatLib collection. These methods include an implementation of the “loose-coupling” approach to the pseudo-data step which reduces the overall computational burden in problems with many clusters.
Marketing issues for business-to-business firms entering emerging markets

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively explore marketing issues for foreign industrial companies of large, small and medium size entering emerging markets (EMs), particularly transition economies in Eastern Europe. The vast majority of current studies about EMs focus only on defining suitable strategies related to large consumer goods corporations. Design/methodology/approach – The research adopted a multiple case study approach. Five Italian companies belonging to different business-to-business industries that have entered emerging countries in Eastern Europe were selected for investigation. Findings – Empirical analysis uncovered recurring issues related to: institutional factors causing market uncertainty and instability; difficulties in building a sales network; a need for product adaptation to guarantee satisfactory performance; choices related to communication, branding and trade fairs; and considerations about competition and first mover advantage. Results can be interpreted as a.
Distance-Sensitive Property Testing Lower Bounds

In this paper, we consider several property testing problems and ask how the query complexity depends on the distance parameter $\eps$. We achieve new lower bounds in this setting for the problems of testing whether a function is monotone and testing whether the function has low Fourier degree. For monotonicity testing, our lower bound matches the recent upper bound of Chakrabarty and Seshadhri.
The Immune Response to Melanoma Is Limited by Thymic Selection of Self-Antigens

The expression of melanoma-associated antigens (MAA) being limited to normal melanocytes and melanomas, MAAs are ideal targets for immunotherapy and melanoma vaccines. As MAAs are derived from self, immune responses to these may be limited by thymic tolerance. The extent to which self-tolerance prevents efficient immune responses to MAAs remains unknown. The autoimmune regulator (AIRE) controls the expression of tissue-specific self-antigens in thymic epithelial cells (TECs). The level of antigens expressed in the TECs determines the fate of auto-reactive thymocytes. Deficiency in AIRE leads in both humans (APECED patients) and mice to enlarged autoreactive immune repertoires. Here we show increased IgG levels to melanoma cells in APECED patients correlating with autoimmune skin features. Similarly, the enlarged T cell repertoire in AIRE−/− mice enables them to mount anti-MAA and anti-melanoma responses as shown by increased anti-melanoma antibodies, and enhanced CD4+ and MAA-specific CD8+ T cell responses after melanoma challenge. We show that thymic expression of gp100 is under the control of AIRE, leading to increased gp100-specific CD8+ T cell frequencies in AIRE−/− mice. TRP-2 (tyrosinase-related protein), on the other hand, is absent from TECs and consequently TRP-2 specific CD8+ T cells were found in both AIRE−/− and AIRE+/+ mice. This study emphasizes the importance of investigating thymic expression of self-antigens prior to their inclusion in vaccination and immunotherapy strategies.
Inference algorithm based wireless and pyroelectric sensory fusion system for indoor human/robot localization and monitoring

Indoor monitoring system for robot and human is an important issue in robotics research. In this study, we propose an indoor monitoring system based on wireless and pyroelectric infrared (WPIR) sensory fusion system. Pyroelectric infrared (PIR) system alone for localization provides less accurate information of human location and suffers from multiple targets localization. Furthermore, radio frequency (RF) localization system alone is also constrained by its limited accuracy. We develop a sensor network based localization method called WPIR inference algorithm. This algorithm determine the fused position from both PIR localization system and radio frequency signal localization system which utilizes received signal strength (RSS) model. We have developed and experimentally demonstrated a WPIR sensory fusion system which can be applied in localizing targets, such as human and robot. With the proper localization mechanism in the indoor environment, the provision of appropriate services for people can be realized with less expensive cost.
Understanding Social Security: Issues for policy and practice

Part One: Changing contexts Introduction Jane Millar From benefits to tax credits: changing policy and practice in income maintenance policy and practice Jane Millar From the cradle to the grave? Social security over the life cycle Karen Rowlingson Words count too: the new discourse of social policy making in the UK Theodoros Papadopoulous and Emma Carmel Social security in global context Nicola Yeates Part Two: Changing goals Introduction Jane Millar Welfare to work Alex Bryson Cash versus care: providing real security for those who cannot work Saul Becker Disability, capability and social exclusion Tania Burchardt Benefiting children? The challenge of childhood poverty Tess Ridge Reforming pensions: investing in the future Stephen McKay Part Three: Changing delivery The customer and service delivery Bruce Stafford Implementation: social security from a street-level bureaucracy perspective Sharon Wright Social security in a multi-ethnic society Lucinda Platt Tackling social security fraud Roy Sainsbury Wired-up welfare: the impact of technology on social security Karen Kellard Conclusions Jane Millar.
Deferred shadowing for real‐time rendering of dynamic scenes under environment illumination

Environment illumination, which is a complex and distant lighting environment represented by images, is often applied to create photo‐realistic images. However, creating photo‐realistic animations under environment illumination is exceedingly compute intensive. The Precomputed Radiance Transfer (PRT) methods achieve real‐time rendering under environment illumination; however, these methods only have a limited application in animation because the objects in the scene cannot be moved or rotated. In this paper, we propose a method for rendering photo‐realistic animations of dynamic scenes under environment illumination in real time. We notice the fact that when objects are moved or rotated, changes of radiances occur mainly in the regions of shadows cast by other objects. Our method makes a distinction between self‐shadow and shadows cast by other objects and computes these two kinds of shadows efficiently. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Data driven security alarm model for embedded applications

The main objective of the work is to propose a security alarm model for embedded crypto application considering the latency value of the process by different computational techniques. An embedded crypto application using Vernam ciphering is considered which may give an unexpected erroneous output in real time environment due to transients and deliberately injected faults. An advanced proactive security alarming technique is proposed for the design and development of such embedded application which will indicate secure and safe operations by prediction. The nature of the attack and its corresponding security measure of the embedded application is modeled using embedded system modeling language (ESML) and implemented in VLSI platforms. The probability of getting a security alarm in run time condition depends on the design parameters like latency, code version and the hardware platform on which it is running. The application is modeled as an event based one and it is monitored based on the design data from the developer. The probability of the proposed security alarm is verified in the design phase when running under different platforms in different versions with redundant processes.
Telecommunications Infrastructure and Economic Development: a Simultaneous Approach Forschungsschwerpunkt Marktprozeß Und Unter- Nehmensentwicklung Research Area Market Processes and Corporate Development Abstract Telecommunications Infrastructure and Economic Development: a Simultaneous Approach *

In this paper we investigate how telecommunications infrastructure affects economic growth. This issue is important and has received considerable attention in the popular press concerning the creation of the "information superhighway" and its potential impacts on the economy. We use evidence from 21 OECD countries over the past twenty years to examine the impacts that telecommunications developments may have had. We estimate a structural model which endogenizes telecommunication investment by specifying a micro-model of supply and demand for telecommunication investments. The micro-model is then jointly estimated with the macro-growth equation. After controlling for country-specific fixed effects, we find evidence of a positive causal link, provided that a critical mass of telecommunication infrastructure is present. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Telekommunikations-Infrastruktur und Wirtschaftsentwicklung: Ein simultanes Modell In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, welchen Einfluß die Telekommunikations-Infrastruk-tur auf die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung ausübt. Diese wichtige Frage hat im Zusammen-hang mit der Diskussion um "Informationsautobahnen" Aktualität erlangt. In der vorlie-genden Studie wird der Einfluß der Telekommunikations-Infrastruktur für 21 OECD-Länder für die vergangenen 20 Jahre analysiert. Es wird ein Strukturgleichungsmodell geschätzt, in dem Investitionen in die Telekommunikations-Infrastruktur als endogene Variable erfaßt werden und in einem Mikromodell Angebot und Nachfrage nach Tele-kommunikations-Investitionen spezifiziert werden. Das Mikromodell wird dann zusam-men mit der Makro-Wachstumsgleichung geschätzt. Als Ergebnis stellen die Autoren dann eine positive Kausalbeziehung zwischen Telekommunikations-Investitionen und wirtschaftlicher Entwicklung fest, wenn eine kritische Masse an Telekommunikations-Infrastruktur existiert. Financial support from the OECD and INSEAD are gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are theirs.