Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Insider Trading After Repurchase Tender Offer Announcements: Timing versus Informed Trading

"Abnormally high net insider selling is commonly observed after repurchase tender offer (RTO) announcements although, on average, firms experience positive abnormal returns in the years after the repurchases. We explore two potential explanations: liquidity trade timing and informed trading. Consistent with the notion that fixed price RTOs are more likely than Dutch-auction RTOs to signal undervaluation, the results suggest that insider selling after fixed price RTO announcements are driven largely by insiders who time their trades with the repurchase announcements. In contrast, selling after Dutch-auction RTOs seems to be driven primarily by informed traders who exploit mispricing associated with the repurchase announcements. " Copyright (c) 2010 Financial Management Association International.
Enhancing accuracy of deep learning algorithms by training with low-discrepancy sequences

We propose a deep supervised learning algorithm based on low-discrepancy sequences as the training set. By a combination of theoretical arguments and extensive numerical experiments we demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms standard deep learning algorithms that are based on randomly chosen training data, for problems in moderately high dimensions. The proposed algorithm provides an efficient method for building inexpensive surrogates for many underlying maps in the context of scientific computing.
Flexible Endoscopy Simulators

Training in flexible endoscopy is becoming increasingly complex. In an effort to improve the efficiency of endoscopic education, physicians are turning to simulation technology to provide a plafform for training away from the endoscopy suite. The concept of medical simulation is not new, but the recent addition of powerful computer-generated virtual reality simulation has revolutionized the field. These compact computers are now able to generate a simulated environment that not only mimics the movement of the endoscope, but also recreates the sounds of the endoscopy suite, the feel of the movement of the scope, the reaction of intestinal tissue, and the response of a patient experiencing discomfort. Within this life-like simulated environment, a wide variety of diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic procedures can be performed. This article reviews the history of flexible endoscopy simulators and details the most advanced models currently available. The literature supporting the use of these simulators is also presented, and issues involving the incorporation of simulation technology into endoscopic education and credentialing are discussed.
The significance of irritability, behaviouristic avoidance and allied phenomena in malaria eradication.

A review of the literature dealing with irritability and other behaviour phenomena shown by anopheline mosquitos in relation to house treatment with residual insecticides has indicated the need for a re-appraisal of terms and criteria. A general term, "behaviouristic avoidance", has been proposed to deal with all those aspects of behaviour in which mosquitos, irritated by sub-lethal contact with insecticide-treated surfaces, can escape apparently unharmed from treated houses.A critical examination of relevant figures has as yet failed to reveal any convincing proof as to the existence of behaviouristic resistance-that is, cases in which the phenomena of irritability and avoidance are reported to have appeared or to have been intensified only as a result of continued insecticide pressure.Various criteria are discussed in relation to establishing the existence of "behaviouristic avoidance" in a species, and in deciding whether this irritability is natural (i.e., "protective avoidance") or whether it could be attributed to an intensification of irritability under continued insecticide pressure (i.e., "behaviouristic resistance").
A Survey on Hardware Approaches for Remote Attestation in Network Infrastructures

Remote attestation schemes have been utilized for assuring the integrity of a network node to a remote verifier. In recent years, a number of remote attestation schemes have been proposed for various contexts such as cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoTs) and critical network infrastructures. These attestation schemes provide a different perspective in terms of security objectives, scalability and efficiency. In this report, we focus on remote attestation schemes that use a hardware device and cryptographic primitives to assist with the attestation of nodes in a network infrastructure. We also point towards the open research challenges that await the research community and propose possible avenues of addressing these challenges.
A Stabilizing Model Predictive Controller for Voltage Regulation of a DC/DC Boost Converter

This brief proposes a cascade voltage control strategy for the dc/dc converter utilizing a model predictive control (MPC) in the inner loop. The proposed MPC minimizes a cost function at each time step in the receding horizon manner and the corresponding optimal solution is obtained from a predefined function not relying on a numeric algorithm. It is shown that the MPC makes the capacitor voltage and the inductor current globally convergent in the presence of input constraints. State constraints also can be taken into account in the proposed MPC. Following the conventional cascade voltage control scheme, a Proportional-Integral (PI) controller is adopted in the outer loop. The experimental results show that the closed-loop performance is superior to the classical cascade PI control scheme.
Electrodeposition of nanostructure materials

We are conducting a multi-disciplinary research work that involves development of nanostructured thin films of semiconductors for different applications. Nanotechnology is widely considered to constitute the basis of the next technological revolution, following on from the first Industrial Revolution, which began around 1750 with the introduction of the steam engine and steelmaking. Nanotechnology is defined as the design, characterization, production, and application of materials, devices and systems by controlling shape and size of the nanoscale. The nanoscale itself is at present considered to cover the range from 1 to 100 nm. All samples prepared in thin film forms and the characterization revealed their nanostructure. The major exploitation of thin films has been in microelectronics, there are numerous and growing applications in communications, optical electronics, coatings of all kinds, and in energy generation. A great many sophisticated analytical instruments and techniques, largely developed to characterize thin films, have already become indispensable in virtually every scientific endeavor irrespective of discipline. Among all these techniques, electrodeposition is the most suitable technique for nanostructured thin films from aqueous solution served as samples under investigation. The electrodeposition of metallic layers from aqueous solution is based on the discharge of metal ions present in the electrolyte at a cathodic surface (the substrate or component.) The metal ions accept an electron from the electrically conducting material at the solid- electrolyte interface and then deposit as metal atoms onto the surface. The electrons necessary for this to occur are either supplied from an externally applied potential source or are surrendered by a reducing agent present in solution (electroless reduction). The metal ions themselves derive either from metal salts added to solution, or by the anodic dissolution of the so-called sacrificial anodes, made of the same metal that is to be deposited at the cathode.
E-Learning Capability Maturity Level in Kingdom of Bahrain.

Despite the effectiveness of using e-learning, educational institutions are still facing many challenges with the elearning infrastructure and technical aspects, practices and capabilities, and improvement in learning outcome. Hence, a need for framework to benchmark the e-learning capability maturity level and measure the extent to what it is improving the learning processes and ensure improvements in student learning outcomes is raised. The current research is aim at assessing and identifying the e-learning maturity level of the universities in the Kingdom of Bahrain by adopting the e-learning Maturity Model (e-MM). The current state of e-learning in the Kingdom of Bahrain in terms of the drivers for the using e-learning, the technical challenges faced by the learners and level of satisfaction with the current e-learning systems will be investigated in attempt to consolidate the findings. A self-administrated questionnaire was adopted in which 400 surveys were distributed to the public university (University of Bahrain) and all private universities in Kingdom of Bahrain. The overall eMM figures demonstrate that universities in Kingdom of Bahrain both public and private reached an average level of achievement and performance in e-learning processes and developed reasonable capability maturity level on each dimension of the learning processes.
High gain 60 GHz LTCC chain antenna array with substrate integrated waveguide feed network

A design of a traveling wave chain antenna array operating at 60 GHz frequency band is presented in this paper. The antenna consists of several parallel microstrip chains printed on an LTCC substrate. The array feed network is constructed using substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology to minimise the transmission line losses. The presented design is scalable in frequency and in size, and a high antenna gain can be achieved with a large array. A test structure of size 27 mm × 22 mm × 1.1 mm is realised on Ferro A6-M LTCC. The antenna including the WR-15 to SIW transition has the measured maximum gain of 22 dBi at 62 GHz. The simulated maximum radiation efficiency of the antenna alone is 74%.
Neural Networks Performance for Skin Detection

The use of Neural Networks for skin detection has been reported in many research studies. However, direct use of any color space does not produce optimistic results. This is because the feature vectors to be used as training input to the NN is only size three. This research elaborates on the problem of direct use of color space by analyzing a general images database and show that NN performance is limited.
Regional propagation model based fingerprinting localization in indoor environments

In this paper, we present a novel indoor propagation model for use in a wireless LAN (WLAN) based fingerprinting localization system. This model is based on a derivation of the free space propagation model taking into account the penetration loss and geographic propagation factors in different regions of the indoor structure. The objective of the model is to reconstruct the collected sparse fingerprinting database, eliminating the workload in the offline data collection phase. In the online phase, weighted K-nearest neighbor (WKNN) is adopted to obtain the final location estimation. We have carried out various experiments in a real-world setup to show the performance improvement of the proposed algorithm. Results show that proposed propagation model obtains more accurate prediction of the received signal strength values than other traditional models, delivering a high localization accuracy of up to 1.4 meter.
Word Sense Disambiguation: A Structured Learning Perspective

This paper explores the application of structured learning methods (SLMs) to word sense disambiguation (WSD). On one hand, the semantic dependencies between polysemous words in the sentence can be encoded in SLMs. On the other hand, SLMs obtained significant achievements in natural language processing, and so it is a natural idea to apply them to WSD. However, there are many theoretical and practical problems when SLMs are applied to WSD, due to characteristics of WSD. Beginning with the method based on hidden Markov model, this paper proposes for the first time a comprehensive and unified solution for WSD based on maximum entropy Markov model, conditional random field and tree-structured conditional random field, and reduces the time complexity and running time of the proposed methods to a reasonable level by beam search, approximate training, and parallel training. The update of models brings performance improvement, the introduction of one step dependency improves performance by 1--5 percent, the adoption of non-independent features improves performance by 2--3 percent, and the extension of underlying structure to dependency parsing tree improves performance by about 1 percent. On the English all-words WSD dataset of Senseval-2004, the method based on tree-structured conditional random field outperforms the best attendee system significantly. Nevertheless, almost all machine learning methods suffer from data sparseness due to the scarcity of sense tagged data, and so do SLMs. Besides improving structured learning methods according to the characteristics of WSD, another approach to improve disambiguation performance is to mine disambiguation knowledge from all kinds of sources, such as Wikipedia, parallel corpus, and to alleviate knowledge acquisition bottleneck of WSD.
An SDN-based IP hopping communication scheme against scanning attack

Scanning attack threatens the security of network communication severely. Traditional network communication usually uses static IP address configuration, which provides convenience to scanning attackers. In this paper, an IP Hopping (IPH) communication scheme is proposed based on software-defined network to solve this problem, in which IP addresses can be assigned to the hosts in the network dynamically so that dynamic network communication can be achieved. IPH is a live IP address allocation scheme, which can transparently change the hosts' IP in active communications without interrupting them. In addition, multi-channel protocol can be supported in IPH as well. Experiments show that IPH can efficiently resist scanning attacks and support multi-channel protocols with relatively low cost.
PRODUCTION OF TANNASE UNDER SOLID-STATE FERMENTATION AND ITS APPLICATION IN DETANNIFICATION OF GUAVA JUICE

Guava juice is known to be rich in antioxidant activity due a high level of vitamins A and C. However, tannins present in the guava juice form tannin–protein complexes that affect the utilization of vitamins and minerals and inhibit digestive enzymes. Beside this, bitterness and cloudiness are the other major problems of juice industries. The present study aimed to utilize a low-cost substrate (tea residue) for the production of tannase and its application in detannification of guava juice. Solid-state fermentation (SSF) was evaluated to produce tannase from Aspergillus niger. Maximum tannase (1.86 U/g dry substrate) production was observed at 30°C after 96 hr of the incubation period. The optimum pH of the moistening agent was found to be 5.0. Partially purified enzyme using ammonium sulfate precipitation was subjected to guava juice treatment at a level of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0% for 30 and 60 min. Decrease in tannic acid content of guava juice was found to be 17.60, 29.04, and 44.38% after 30 min and 40.59, 53.69, and 59.23% after 60 min, respectively.
Comparison of Techniques for HIV‐1 RNA Detection and Quantitation in Cervicovaginal Secretions

Principles: HIV‐1 in female genital secretions has been measured using swabs, Sno Strips (Akorn, Inc., Buffalo Grove, IL), and cervicovaginal lavage (CVL), but little is known regarding the comparability of these collection techniques. Methods: We compared HIV‐1 RNA detection and quantity in specimens obtained from HIV‐1‐seropositive women in Kenya using three sample collection techniques and three storage techniques and evaluated reproducibility in samples collected 5 days apart. Specimens were stored in no medium, freezing medium, or TRI Reagent (Molecular Research Center, Cincinnati, OH) for 2 to 15 months. Results: HIV‐1 RNA assays were conducted on 640 specimens from 20 antiretroviral naive women. Storage in TRI Reagent significantly enhanced detection of genital HIV‐1 and yielded significantly higher mean log10 RNA levels than specimens collected in either no or freezing medium. The prevalence of HIV‐1 RNA detection in TRI Reagent ranged from 50% to 80% depending on collection method and was highest in cervical swabs. Mean log10 HIV‐1 RNA levels were 3.1 log10 copies/cervical swab, 2.6 log10 copies/cervical Sno Strip, 2.5 log10 copies/vaginal swab, 2.4 log10 copies/ vaginal Sno Strip, 2.9 log10 copies/ml for cervicovaginal lavage (CVL) cell pellet, and 2.1 log10 copies/ml in CVL supernatant. Comparing specimens from days 1 and 6, there was significant concordance of HIV‐1 RNA detection and correlation of HIV‐1 RNA levels for cervical swabs, vaginal swabs, vaginal Sno Strips, and CVL cell pellets (&khgr;, 0.5‐0.9; r, 0.5‐0.9), but not for cervical Sno Strips or CVL supernatants. Conclusions: Cervical or vaginal swab, vaginal Sno Strip, and CVL collection led to reproducible measurement of genital HIV‐1 RNA, despite storage for several months and international transport. Collection using swabs was simpler than Sno Strips or cervicovaginal lavage, and yielded the highest prevalence of HIV‐1 RNA detection and reproducibility.
A Novel Patient Engagement Platform Using Accessible Text Messages and Calls (Epharmix): Feasibility Study

Background Patient noncompliance with therapy, treatments, and appointments represents a significant barrier to improving health care delivery and reducing the cost of care. One method to improve therapeutic adherence is to improve feedback loops in getting clinically acute events and issues to the relevant clinical providers as necessary (ranging from detecting hypoglycemic events for patients with diabetes to notifying the provider when patients are out of medications). Patients often don’t know which information should prompt a call to their physician and proactive checks by the clinics themselves can be very resource intensive. We hypothesized that a two-way SMS system combined with a platform web service for providers would enable both high patient engagement but also the ability to detect relevant clinical alerts. Objective The objectives of this study are to develop a feasible two-way automated SMS/phone call + web service platform for patient-provider communication, and then study the feasibility and acceptability of the Epharmix platform. First, we report utilization rates over the course of the first 18 months of operation including total identified clinically significant events, and second, review results of patient user-satisfaction surveys for interventions for patients with diabetes, COPD, congestive heart failure, hypertension, surgical site infections, and breastfeeding difficulties. Methods To test this question, we developed a web service + SMS/phone infrastructure (“Epharmix”). Utilization results were measured based on the total number of text messages or calls sent and received, with percentage engagement defined as a patient responding to a text message at least once in a given week, including the number of clinically significant alerts generated. User satisfaction surveys were sent once per month over the 18 months to measure satisfaction with the system, frequency and degree of communication. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the above information. Results In total, 28,386 text messages and 24,017 calls were sent to 929 patients over 9 months. Patients responded to 80% to 90% of messages allowing the system to detect 1164 clinically significant events. Patients reported increased satisfaction and communication with their provider. Epharmix increased the number of patient-provider interactions to over 10 on average in any given month for patients with diabetes, COPD, congestive heart failure, hypertension, surgical site infections, and breastfeeding difficulties. Conclusions Engaging high-risk patients remains a difficult process that may be improved through novel, digital health interventions. The Epharmix platform enables increased patient engagement with very low risk to improve clinical outcomes. We demonstrated that engagement among high-risk populations is possible when health care comes conveniently to where they are.
Integrated model‐driven engineering of blockchain applications for business processes and asset management

Blockchain has attracted broad interests to build decentralised applications. A typical class of applications uses blockchain for the management of cross‐organisational business processes as well as assets. However, developing such applications without introducing vulnerabilities is hard for developers, not the least because the deployed code is immutable and can be called by anyone with access to the network. Model‐driven engineering (MDE) helps to reduce those risks, by combining proven code snippets as per the model specification, which is easier to understand than source code. Therefore, in this article, we present an approach for integrated MDE across business processes and asset management (e.g., for settlement). Our approach includes methods for fungible/non‐fungible asset registration, escrow for conditional payment, and asset swap. The proposed MDE approach is implemented in a smart contract generation tool called Lorikeet, and evaluated in terms of feasibility, functional correctness, and cost effectiveness.
Successful reversal of complex regional pain syndrome type 1 of both upper extremities in five patients.

Dear Editor, Bilateral complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) appears to be unusual [1–5]. We report details of bilateral CRPS diagnosed by International Association for Study of Pain (IASP) criteria in five patients who presented with florid symptoms (more prominent in one extremity) that persisted despite physical therapy (PT) and medications (Figure 1). They were effectively treated with a novel multimodality treatment regimen (MMTR) developed from our experience in over a hundred patients of CRPS-1 in the last 10 years. Figure 1 (First row, left to right—figure of Patient 3 not included so as to maintain clarity of other figures.) Patient 1 : 52-year-old man with bilateral claw hand. He had severe stiffness from fixed deformity that made writing, holding cups, cutlery, etc. impossible for 14 months after complex regional pain syndrome-1 (CRPS-1). Flexor and extensor muscle contractures were palpable as ropy strands and attempts to make a fist passively resulted in pressure allodynia. Note also the scars of sword injury that severed several tendons in both palms and forearms. He presented with 5–8 verbal rating scale (VRS) pain only on movement. Edema and hair growth (R > L). Patient 2 : 72-year-old diabetic man had severe pain, sensory and motor features of CRPS-1 in both hands 4 months after a fall that resulted in soft tissue injuries; left more affected than right; complete disability, unable to get out of bed, and dress or feed himself; complete prostration. The man had severe rest pain (VRS 8–10) with hyperalgesia, allodynia, severe stiffness, weakness, dystonia, and abnormal movements (L > R). Patient 4 : 60-year-old lady had plating done for right elbow fracture and external fixator put for left lower end radius fracture 5 months prior to presentation. The woman had severe rest pain (VRS 8–10), hyperesthesia, hyperalgesia, and allodynia, severe stiffness, and weakness. …