Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sector Heterogeneity and Credit Market Imperfections in Emerging Markets

This paper shows that the impact of country interest rate shocks on emerging markets' economic activities can be associated with credit market imperfections affecting principally non-tradable activities. I present novel evidence documenting that tradable and non-tradable activities respond asymmetrically to changes in credit conditions in emerging markets. I show that country interest rate shocks are amplified through non-tradable activities, and that local credit substantially explains their output growth. Unlike the non-tradable sector, tradable activities are not significantly affected by changes in local credit conditions. To rationalize these findings, I introduce a small open economy model with heterogeneous access to international borrowing that accounts for the asymmetric response of tradable and non-tradable activities.
Discourse marker based topic identification and search results refining

Most research oriented search queries consist of multiple topics belonging to one or more domains of knowledge. The objective of such search queries is to find the relationship or impact that each topic has on the other(s). Though web search engines provide easy means to retrieve information off the web, search engines are mainly key word oriented and do not consider the different topics and relationships between such topics present in the results. This project presents a software solution, ‘SearchDroid’ that acts as an intermediate user between a search engine and the end user, refining search results based on different topics identified in the search query and their presence and relationships depicted in search results. A discourse parsing approach has been used to build discourse structures that represent the rhetorical relations of text in search results; this is used to re-rank results based on topics identified in the search query. The project combines linguistics research under discourse parsing with web information retrieval techniques. The lack of literature combining discourse parsing techniques with web information retrieval has been compensated for by introducing a fresh algorithmic approach. An abstract information retrieval mechanism has been created with the use of discourse parsing techniques, and can be integrated into any web information retrieval approach. The system was evaluated by Linguistic Experts, Technical Experts and End users. All experts agreed that a discourse parsing approach was suitable for addressing the problem at hand and that the project had high research value in the aspect of linking linguistics research with web information retrieval research. Hands-on testing of the system by End Users produced high user acceptance of the proposed system.
Using an attributed 2D-grid for next-best-view planning on 3D environment data for an autonomous robot

The usage of geometrical 3D-models enables humans to plan and design different aspects of indoor environments. This article describes the next-best-view planner for an autonomous 3D modelling robot using a 3D laser scanner. Besides the human user, the constructed 3D-model can also be used by other autonomous robots for navigation and localization tasks. The process of building a 3D-model without any geometrical pre-knowledge leads to a planning scheme which uses the 3D data. This article copes with that problem by using and attributed 2D grid combined with an intelligent action planning scheme for indoor environments.
PC-PRPMANet: A power controller and proactive routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks

Adaptive HELLO Messages are generated according to the instantaneous energy level of the battery is proposed for PC-PRPMANet based routing protocol. The HELLO messages are used by routing protocol for neighborhood discovery. Energy levels of neighbor nodes are collected by adjusting the HELLO messages period. Using Topology Control messages, each node stores the energy level for each valid path. Then we define the safest path as the route with the maximum energy level. In ad hoc networks, a node with an empty battery leaves the network, so no message should be sent through this route. This safest path definition represents the main feature of this work.
Issues in User Authentication 1

In this brief paper we outline our recent work on u sability studies of user authentication systems. In particul ar, we have conducted studies on password managers and graphical password systems, using in-lab experiment s, interviews, and broader field studies. We then disc uss some of the important issues arising, including mental m odels of security, the role of persuasion, and the nature of identify theft.
Parameterized Complexity and Approximation Algorithms

Approximation algorithms and parameterized complexity are usually considered to be two separate ways of dealing with hard algorithmic problems. In this paper, our aim is to investigate how these two fields can be combined to achieve better algorithms than what any of the two theories could offer. We discuss the different ways parameterized complexity can be extended to approximation algorithms, survey results of this type and propose directions for future research.
‘The Bright Side is the Help Surrounding Me in Coping with Problems’: a reflective workshop in induction for dance teachers

Abstract The article presents a combined study – quantitative and qualitative – that examined the changes that occurred in the perceptions of beginning dance teachers over their internship year, following their participation in a targeted induction workshop, in which the collaborative reflection methodology was used. The study examined an intervention plan constructed for the induction workshop and aimed at dealing with difficulties in teaching and reinforcing professional commitment and satisfaction. The quantitative findings show that the workshop served as the most important agent of support for the participants, and the measurements between the beginning of the workshop and its conclusion show a significant decrease in the overall measurement of the difficulties, a significant increase in the perception of satisfaction from teaching, and a tendency of increase in the perception of commitment to teaching. The qualitative findings supported the quantitative findings and allowed insight into the particular reflective processes the participants underwent along the workshop, and their significance from their point of view. Based on the quantitative and qualitative findings the article raises practical implications as to actions in the field of induction workshops, as well as further directions for future research.
Quality Evaluation for Big Data: A Scalable Assessment Approach and First Evaluation Results

High-quality data is a prerequisite for most types of analysis provided by software systems. However, since data quality does not come for free, it has to be assessed and managed continuously. The increasing quantity, diversity, and velocity that characterize big data today make these tasks even more challenging. We identified challenges that are specific for big data quality assessments with particular emphasis on their usage in smart ecosystems and make a proposal for a scalable cross-organizational approach that addresses these challenges. We developed an initial prototype to investigate scalability in a multi-node test environment using big data technologies. Based on the observed horizontal scalability behavior, there is an indication that the proposed approach also allows dealing with increasing volumes of heterogeneous data.
Success Factors for Higher Education ERPs

In this paper we have identified some critical implementation factors of an ERP project implementation in universities. Taking into consideration that for industry implementations there are already many performed studies we started by considering university implementations as a particular case for the industry ones. The purpose of our research is to make a list of the main success factors in implementing an ERP in the academic environment.
Expression of matrix metalloproteinases-8 and -9 and their tissue inhibitor in the condyles of diabetic rats with mandibular advancement

The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of type 1 diabetes mellitus on the condylar response during treatment with a functional appliance. Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into 3 groups, normal (NG), diabetes (DG) and diabetes with insulin-treatment (TG). Bite-jumping appliances were fitted to the rats in the experimental groups. At 7, 14, 21 and 28 days following fitting, animals were sacrificed and condyles were excised and processed using routine histological techniques. The expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-8, MMP-9 and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) was detected using immunohistochemical analysis. Mandibular advancement increased the expression levels of MMP-8 (peaked on day 28), MMP-9 (peaked on day 21), TIMP-1 (peaked on days 21 and 28) and the ratio of MMP-8 to TIMP-1 and MMP-9 to TIMP-1. In the DG, diabetes decreased the expression levels of MMP-8 and MMP-9 induced by mandibular advancement and increased the expression levels of TIMP-1 compared with that of the NG. The ratio of MMP-8 to TIMP-1 and MMP-9 to TIMP-1 also showed a significant decrease in the DG compared with that of the NG. A recovery of these parameters was observed in the TG. Diabetes significantly altered the condylar response, which was triggered by mandibular advancement, and weakened subsequent bone deposition. The results from the TG were not significantly different from that of the NG.
A Phenomenological Study: The Role of Spiritual Support in the Persistence of Online Doctoral Students

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to investigate the role of spiritual support in the persistence of online students who have completed their doctorate in education. The definition of internal spiritual support used in this study was “support perceived in the context of an individual’s relationship with God” (Maton, 1989, p. 319). Internal support included the prayers, personal Bible study, and other forms of spiritual interaction between the doctoral student and God. For the purpose of this study, external spiritual support was defined as the spiritual aspect of social support. External support included the spiritual support provided by the prayers, Bible verses, and other forms of spiritual encouragement given by peers, friends, family, and professors. Persistence was defined in this study as “. the result of students’ decisions to continue their participation in the learning event under analysis” (Berge & Huang, 2004, p. 4). A purposive sampling of seven students who persisted and graduated from an online doctoral program in education was utilized. The setting was a Christian university in the Eastern United States with an online doctoral program. Interviews, journaling, and site documents were used as methods of data collection. The data analysis procedure included epoche/bracketing, horizonalization, clusters of meanings, textural descriptions, and structural descriptions. Composite description was the final step and revealed the essence of the participants’ experiences (Creswell, 2007).
Analysis of the Relationship between Corporate IT Capability and Corporate Performance through Korea IT Success Cases: An Empirical Approach

An IT system within a company play increasingly important role as a significant part of corporate assets. The IT system possesses an extraordinary ability to improve an organization’s efficiency, effectiveness and productivity by providing competitive advantages and improving strategic business decision capabilities. Indeed, providing a more secure IT environment, improving employee productivity and enhancing business process and strategic decision capabilities are key areas to improve corporate performance. However, existing research on IT ROI of return on IT investments does not provide solid justification to stakeholders. In this paper, we analyze the IT investment during the past 28 years from 1982 to 2009 and present the results in two dimensions. First, we show the IT solution implementation analysis by years and industries based on 1,240 IT success cases from 8 different sources such as major Korea IT newspaper, IT magazines, and IT vendors. Then, the paper presents the relationship between IT capability through IT success cases and corporate business performance among 32 industries.
Early congestion control: A new approach to improve the performance of TCP in ad hoc networks

Several types of research have been conducted in an attempt to improve the performance of TCP in ad hoc wireless networks. Many of these studies perform TCP side changes, which can be difficult to implement, and others seek to hide problems in the TCP link, which already proven not to be effective. In order to improve TCP performance in such networks, this paper shows the early congestion control (ECC), a new cross-layer mechanism, implemented as an active queue management (AQM), that dynamically changes the value of the window field from TCP headers according to the utilization of the router queue. The new method is TCP-Friendly and does not require TCP changes. To evaluate its performance, comparison tests were performed against Droptail and RED approaches. Results of two simulation scenarios showed that the new method increases goodput and reduces delay and the number of losses.
Question Answering with SEMEX at TREC 2005

We describe the SEMEX question-answering system and report its performance in the TREC 2005 Question Answering track. Since this was SE- MEX's first year participating in the TREC evaluations, implementation teething pains were expected and indeed encountered. Nevertheless, perfor- mance against difficult factoid and list questions was supportive of the ques- tion answering approach that was implemented.
On the Tradeoff Between Robustness and Energy-Efficiency of the Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, the power-aware routing algorithm (PowerCost) can effectively reduce routing energy consumption and prolong the network lifetime, however, it can not tolerate localization errors. In contrast, the greedy routing algorithm is robust to localization errors but is not energy-efficient. In this paper, based on the analysis of the tradeoff between robustness and energy-efficiency, a robust power-aware routing algorithm, robust-powercost, is proposed, which combines the advantages of the previous routing algorithms. Extensive simulations are performed to confirm the efficacy of our algorithm and it is shown in the results that robust-powercost achieves near ideal performance for a wide range of system configurations
Interpreting Cues of Goodness: Thin Sliced Judgment of Malaysians and Chinese towards Political Leaders

Abstract Thin slice studies have demonstrated that quick personality inferences of unknown others can be made fairly accurately. Utilizing focus group interviews, the current study examines thin sliced judgments and perceptions of six leaders in the context of goodness. Findings revealed that perceivers were able to form relatively accurate impressions of some leaders based on brief glimpses of nonverbal footage. Across all groups (Malaysian and Chinese) paralinguistic cues, dynamic cues and static cues were instrumental in the formation of positive perceptions of leaders in the context of goodness. These findings have implications for the areas of nonverbal behaviour, political communication, and personality judgement.
A Fast Randomized Algorithm for Orthogonal Projection

We describe an algorithm that, given any full-rank matrix $A$ having fewer rows than columns, can rapidly compute the orthogonal projection of any vector onto the null space of $A$, as well as the orthogonal projection onto the row space of $A$, provided that both $A$ and its adjoint $A^*$ can be applied rapidly to arbitrary vectors. As an intermediate step, the algorithm solves the overdetermined linear least-squares regression involving $A^*$ and may therefore be used for this purpose as well. In many circumstances, the technique can accelerate interior-point methods for convex optimization, including linear programming (see, for example, Chapter 11 of [S. J. Wright, Primal-Dual Interior-Point Methods, SIAM, Philadelphia, 1997]). The basis of the algorithm is an obvious but numerically unstable scheme (typically known as the method of normal equations); suitable use of a preconditioner yields numerical stability. We generate the preconditioner rapidly via a randomized procedure that succeeds with extremely high probability. We provide numerical examples demonstrating the superior accuracy of the randomized method over direct use of the normal equations.
Image Retrieval Based on Manifold Learning and Incorporate Clustering

This paper presents a novel unsupervised learning framework named Image Retrieval Based on Manifold Learning and Incorporate Clustering. The dimensionality of image descriptors used in image retrieval applications is quite high. Given a query image, our algorithm first makes use of manifold learning (LPP) for dimensionality reduction and manifold ranking algorithm to explore the relationship among all the data points in the feature space, and then measures relevance between the query and all the images in the database accordingly. Then we use the similarities among target images for improving the performance of the image retrieval systems by cluster-based retrieval of images by unsupervised learning. Our algorithm retrieves image clusters as retrieval results by applying K-means clustering algorithm to a collection of images collected by manifold ranking algorithm. Experimental results on a general-purpose image database show that our algorithm attains a significant improvement over existing systems.
Body fat has no apparent effect on the maximal fat oxidation rate in young fit normal to overweight women

BODY FAT HAS NO APPARENT EFFECT ON THE MAXIMAL FAT OXIDATION RATE IN YOUNG FIT NORMAL TO OVERWEIGHT WOMEN by Ashley Nicole Blaize The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether body fat affects the maximal rate of fat oxidation in young women during a graded exercise test. Fourteen female subjects with body composition ranging from 18.6 to 30% fat underwent testing. On day 1 the subjects performed a VO2max treadmill test. On day 2 subjects were measured for % fat and performed a maximal fat oxidation test. The rates of fat and carbohydrate oxidation were determined using gas exchange analysis. The results here were no significant differences (p>0.05) in maximal fat oxidation rates between the women in lower-fat and higher-fat groups. Fat oxidation occurred at an exercise intensity of 55.7 ± 11.1% and 59.1 ± 5.4% VO2max for the lower-fat and higher-fat groups, respectively, with no significant difference between groups (p>0.05). In conclusion, fat mass does not significantly influence the maximal fat oxidation rates during a graded exercise test in young healthy normal and overweight women. BODY FAT HAS NO APPARENT EFFECT ON THE MAXIMAL FAT OXIDATION RATE IN YOUNG FIT NORMAL TO OVERWEIGHT WOMEN
Click chemistry reactions in medicinal chemistry: Applications of the 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition between azides and alkynes

In recent years, there has been an ever‐increasing need for rapid reactions that meet the three main criteria of an ideal synthesis: efficiency, versatility, and selectivity. Such reactions would allow medicinal chemistry to keep pace with the multitude of information derived from modern biological screening techniques. The present review describes one of these reactions, the 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition (“click‐reaction”) between azides and alkynes catalyzed by copper (I) salts. The simplicity of this reaction and the ease of purification of the resulting products have opened new opportunities in generating vast arrays of compounds with biological potential. The present review will outline the accomplishments of this strategy achieved so far and outline some of medicinal chemistry applications in which click‐chemistry might be relevant in the future. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Med Res Rev, 28, No. 2, 278–308, 2008
Environmental Mechanisms Shaping the Nature of Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies: The View of Computer Simulations

We review numerical works carried out over the last decade on the role of environmental mechanisms in shaping nature of the faintest galaxies known, dwarf spheroidals (dSphs). The combination of tidally induced morphological transformation, termed tidal stirring, with mass loss due to tidal and ram-pressure stripping aided by heating due to the cosmic ionizing background can turn late-type dwarfs resembling present-day dIrrs into classic dSphs. The time of infall into the primary halo is shown to be a key parameter. Dwarfs accreting at 𝑧>1, when the cosmic ultraviolet ionizing flux was much higher than today, and was thus able to keep the gas in the dwarfs warm and diffuse, were rapidly stripped of their baryons via ram pressure and tidal forces, producing very dark-matter-dominated objects with truncated star-formation histories, such as the Draco dSph. The low star-formation efficiency expected in such low-metallicity objects prior to their infall was crucial for keeping their disks gas dominated until stripping took over. Therefore gas stripping along with inefficient star-formation provides a new feedback mechanism, alternative to photoevaporation or supernovae feedback, playing a crucial role in dwarf galaxy formation and evolution. We also discuss how the ultra-faint dSphs belong to a different population of lower-mass dwarf satellites that were mostly shaped by reionization rather than by environmental mechanisms (“reionization fossils”). Finally, we scrutinize the various caveats in the current understanding of environmental effects as well as other recent ideas on the origin of Local Group dSphs.
Open JDK Meets Xeon Phi: A Comprehensive Study of Java HPC on Intel Many-Core Architecture

The increasing demand for performance has stimulated the wide adoption of many-core accelerators like Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor, which is based on Intel's Many Integrated Core architecture. While many HPC applications running in native mode have been tuned to run efficiently on Xeon Phi, it is still unclear how a managed runtime like JVM performs on such an architecture. In this paper, we present the first measurement study of a set of Java HPC applications on Xeon Phi under JVM. One key obstacle to the study is that there is currently little support of Java for Xeon Phi. This paper presents the result based on the first porting of Open JDK platform to Xeon Phi, in which Hot Spot VM acts as the kernel execution engine. The main difficulty includes the incompatibility between Xeon Phi ISA and the assembly library of Hotspot VM. By evaluating the multithreaded Java Grande benchmark suite, we quantitatively study the performance and scalability issues of JVM on Xeon Phi and draw several conclusions from the study. To fully utilize the vector computing capability, we also present a semi-automatic vectorization in Hot Spot VM. Together with this optimization and tuning, our optimized JVM achieves up to 3.4X speedup with 60 physical cores compared to that on Xeon CPU processor. Our study indicates that it is viable and potentially performance-beneficial to run applications written for managed runtime on Xeon Phi.
A 3-D display method of atrial ECG-mapping based on CT images

In order to have an intuitive grasp of atrial fibrillation model using ECG mapping technique, we started from animals' CT images, extracted contours of torso surface and epicardium with Snake model, reconstructed three-dimensional models of torso surface and epicardium with triangular patches. Using interpolation based on Delaunay triangulation, signals (acquired from animal experiments) of normal sinus rhythm (NSR) and atrial fibrillation (AF) were displayed in 3D perspective. And the important process in cardiac electrical activity, such as the start and ending parts of spontaneous AF, could be clearly observed.