Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Observations of the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817

We present Spitzer Space Telescope 3.6 and 4.5 μm observations of the binary neutron star merger GW170817 at 43, 74, and 264 days post-merger. Using the final observation as a template, we uncover a source at the position of GW170817 at 4.5 μm with a brightness of 22.9 ± 0.3 AB mag at 43 days and 23.8 ± 0.3 AB mag at 74 days (the uncertainty is dominated by systematics from the image subtraction); no obvious source is detected at 3.6 μm to a 3σ limit of >23.3 AB mag in both epochs. The measured brightness is dimmer by a factor of about 2–3 times compared to our previously published kilonova model, which is based on UV, optical, and near-infrared data at ≲30 days. However, the observed fading rate and color (m3.6–m4.5 ≳ 0 AB mag) are consistent with our model. We suggest that the discrepancy is likely due to a transition to the nebular phase, or a reduced thermalization efficiency at such late time. Using the Spitzer data as a guide, we briefly discuss the prospects of observing future binary neutron star mergers with Spitzer (in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)/Virgo Observing Run 3) and the James Webb Space Telescope (in LIGO/Virgo Observing Run 4 and beyond).
When Do Consumers Eat More? The Role of Appearance Self-Esteem and Food Packaging Cues

Prior research has found that under certain conditions, small packages can paradoxically increase consumption. The authors build on this work by suggesting that people low in appearance self-esteem (ASE) are particularly sensitive to external control properties (i.e., packaging-related factors that signal the ability of packaging to regulate food intake) and, as a result, increase consumption levels when packages are small (vs. large or absent). Factors that highlight the external control properties of small packages, such as the visibility of product quantity, location of the caloric content, and communicated caloric content, further increase consumption, particularly among people with low ASE. The underlying process appears to be, at least in part, cognitively driven. The effects are mitigated when participants are under cognitive load, and the findings are mediated by cognitions regarding the ability of small packages to regulate food intake. The results have important practical implications suggesting that to quell the effects of small packages on overconsumption, emphasis on the external control properties of small packages should be minimized.
Designing High-Quality Professional Development: Scaffolding Secondary Content-Area Teachers' Discipline Literacy Instruction

The study described in this paper is part of a larger grant project funded through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Partnerships comprised of Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) and school districts that were identified as “high needs local educational agencies” (LEAs, defined by Title II, Part A) were eligible to apply for this competitive grant. The grant competition sought applications that focused on the development and delivery of professional development in one or more areas of critical need including literacy, mathematics, and science. Regarding literacy, the Request for Proposals stated that projects should assist “K-12 teachers to become highly qualified, appropriately licensed, highly knowledgeable about and pedagogically skilled in effectively instructing students in literacy” (NC QUEST Cycle VIII RFP, 2009, p. 5). In addition, each project was required to incorporate two professional development “threads”: a) instructional interventions for lowperforming students, and b) the development of teacher leaders who would share instructional techniques, tools, and strategies with other faculty members.
Understanding determinants of government and consumer behavior relative to product safety : an application of the theory of planned behavior to China and the United States

The following thesis applies Icek Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior to explain consumer and government response to safety of Chinese-made products sold in China and the United States. The thesis relies on secondary data as it considers the responses and actions relative to product safety by four different groups: Chinese government, U.S. government, Chinese consumers and U.S. consumers. Increased globalization has heightened the need for a better understanding and agreement about product safety and quality among countries. A comprehensive presentation of laws and factors related to Chinese product quality is made. Each group was considered at the aggregate level. Conclusions were made about the motivations and responses of each group to product safety issues, and propositions were developed to further expand the theoretical model for the theory of planned behavior and thereby evoke a model of planned behavior regarding product safety. These propositions may form the basis for further research into this field. As such, this thesis presents the theory of planned behavior as a viable theory to use in considering issues related to purchase, export and import of safe products. Future primary research is needed to support or reject the concepts and propositions presented in this thesis.
A Longitudinal Pilot Study of Presence in Immersive VR

We present a longitudinal pilot study of presence, comparing lowand high-fidelity virtual environments. We measured presence levels using a presence questionnaire, heart rate, and skin temperature over four sessions. We found no significant difference due to environment fidelity, nor any change in presence over four sessions. Subjective feedback suggests that that using the same tasks in multiple sessions frustrates users, so may also affect participants’ presence assessment.
Simulation Optimization Design on Vehicle Disk Brake

The braking performance is one of the most important active safety performances of vehicle, which plays a key role in the traffic safety. It is necessary to research on braking efficiency and it becomes a hotspot to express the braking performance scientifically and rationally. To improve braking capability and efficiency of vehicle disk brake, a multi-objective optimization model with the lowest braking temperature and the largest braking torque as the objective function was proposed. The model was on the basis of property indexes and restraints needed for disk brake designing. The example to verify its fitness was provided and Genetic Algorithm (GA) in Matlab optimization toolbox was used for solving ideal result.
PhD dissertation: Expected Shortfall estimators and their use in asset allocation

The Expected Shortfall (ES) is a risk measure that averages out all losses more severe than the Value at Risk (VaR). As the ES shares the properties of coherent risk measures, its use as risk constraint in asset allocation has became relevant. First of all, we propose estimators for ES, considering the important case when additional information as some set of regressors is available. The estimators are based on the equivalent representation of ES in terms of the conditional distribution function and the conditional quantile function. Within the estimation framework, departing from a generalized weighted representation of ES, we work on improving the statistical and forecasting properties of the weighted estimators. In the first case, we derive the weighting that minimizes the asymptotic variance of the estimators, while, in the second case, the weighting minimizes some suitably defined forecast error. Nevertheless we are concerned with the use of these estimators in financial applications and construct a simple asset allocation model that maximizes expected return with a loss constraint on ES.
Aspects of dem Generation from Uas Imagery

Since a few years, micro UAS (unmanned aerial systems) with vertical take off and landing capabilities like quadro- or octocopter are used as sensor platform for Aerophotogrammetry. Since the restricted payload of micro UAS with a total weight up of 5 kg (payload only up to 1.5 kg), these systems are often equipped with small format cameras. These cameras can be classified as amateur cameras and it is often the case, that these systems do not meet the requirements of a geometric stable camera for photogrammetric measurement purposes. However, once equipped with a suitable camera system, an UAS is an interesting alternative to expensive manned flights for small areas. The operating flight height of the above described UAS is about 50 up to 150 meters above ground level. This low flight height lead on the one hand to a very high spatial resolution of the aerial imagery. Depending on the cameras focal length and the sensor's pixel size, the ground sampling distance (GSD) is usually about 1 up to 5 cm. This high resolution is useful especially for the automatic generation of homologous tie-points, which are a precondition for the image alignment (bundle block adjustment). On the other hand, the image scale depends on the object's height and the UAV operating height. Objects like mine heaps or construction sites show high variations of the object's height. As a result, operating the UAS with a constant flying height will lead to high variations in the image scale. For some processing approaches this will lead to problems e.g. the automatic tie-point generation in stereo image pairs. As precondition to all DEM generating approaches, first of all a geometric stable camera, sharp images are essentially. Well known calibration parameters are necessary for the bundle adjustment, to control the exterior orientations. It can be shown, that a simultaneous on site camera calibration may lead to misaligned aerial images. Also, the success rate of an automatic tie-point generation differs extremely between several photogrammetric software packages. In this article, the calibration results of a suitable camera system will be shown. For a small format consumer grade camera, the authors will give the proof of ability for photogrammetric measurements purposes. This includes the results of different processing approaches for DEM generation of environments showing high object height variations.
Asp-120 Locates Zn2 for Optimal Metallo-β-lactamase Activity*

Metallo-β-lactamases are zinc-dependent hydrolases that inactivate β-lactam antibiotics, rendering bacteria resistant to them. Asp-120 is fully conserved in all metallo-β-lactamases and is central to catalysis. Several roles have been proposed for Asp-120, but so far there is no agreed consensus. We generated four site-specifically substituted variants of the enzyme BcII from Bacillus cereus as follows: D120N, D120E, D120Q, and D120S. Replacement of Asp-120 by other residues with very different metal ligating capabilities severely impairs the lactamase activity without abolishing metal binding to the mutated site. A kinetic study of these mutants indicates that Asp-120 is not the proton donor, nor does it play an essential role in nucleophilic activation. Spectroscopic and crystallographic analysis of D120S BcII, the least active mutant bearing the weakest metal ligand in the series, reveals that this enzyme is able to accommodate a dinuclear center and that perturbations in the active site are limited to the Zn2 site. It is proposed that the role of Asp-120 is to act as a strong Zn2 ligand, locating this ion optimally for substrate binding, stabilization of the development of a partial negative charge in the β-lactam nitrogen, and protonation of this atom by a zinc-bound water molecule.
Investigating the Macroeconomic and Qualitative Dynamics of Urban Economic Growth: Evidence From the Most Productive Turkish Cities 12

Jane Jacobs (1969) defined cities as the engines of economic growth. Therefore, it is important to examine the growth dynamics of cities. However, most of the studies dealt with country level economic growth and ignored the examination of city level growth dynamics. This study investigated the macroeconomic and qualitative growth dynamics of the most productive Turkish cities by employing linear panel data methodology. Findings indicated that gross fixed capital formation, population, last growth performance, call deposits, bank loans, exports, the sum distance to Ankara and Istanbul, crime rates, having a shore and harbour, the spirit of entrepreneurship and schooling in secondary education have significant influences on urban economic growth in Turkish economy.
Children and economic development: Family size, gender preferences and human capital formation - theory and Indian cases

In the light of Gary Becker's economic theory of the family, considers how economic cost and benefit factors can influence the size of families that parents decide to have. Some support for the importance of such factors is found from results of structured interviews with wives in Kondh-dominated villages in western Orissa. These results are at variance with the hypothesis of Malthus about population growth. Factors that may alter the optimal family size as development proceeds are discussed. It is found in our sampling that, on the whole, there is a preference for daughters rather than sons although this is not as strong in the Kondh-dominated villages as in poor villages in the Santal tribal belt of West Bengal. While in the Kondh-dominated villages some discrimination in access to education in favour of boys compared to girls is present, little such or no such discrimination occurs in relation to access to food and medical attention. In the villages surveyed in the West Bengal Santal tribal belt, discrimination in favour of boys is more pronounced than in the Kondh-dominated area in Orissa. While economic considerations help to explain gender discrimination between boys and girls, we find that social and cultural factors also play a major role. Parents in a similar economic situation seem to display substantially different patterns of gender discrimination between children depending on their social and cultural content. It seems that the extent to which economic theories of the family explain family preferences and behaviour depend significantly on the social and cultural context in which they are to be applied.
Monophyly of Anthozoa (Cnidaria): why do nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenies disagree?

The phylum Cnidaria is usually divided into five classes: Anthozoa, Cubozoa, Hydrozoa, Scyphozoa and Staurozoa. The class Anthozoa is subdivided into two subclasses: Hexacorallia and Octocorallia. Morphological and molecular studies based on nuclear rDNA and recent phylogenomic studies support the monophyly of Anthozoa. On the other hand, molecular studies based on mitochondrial markers, including two recent studies based on mitogenomic data, supported the paraphyly of Anthozoa, and positioned Octocorallia as sister group to Medusozoa (the monophyletic group of Cubozoa, Hydrozoa and Scyphozoa). On the basis of 51 nuclear orthologs from four hexacorallians, four octocorallians, two hydrozoans and one scyphozoan (with poriferans and Homo sapiens as out‐groups), we built a multilocus alignment of 9 873 amino acids, which aimed at minimizing missing data and hidden paralogy, in order to understand the discrepancy between nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenies. Our phylogenetic analyses strongly supported the monophyly of Anthozoa. We compared the level of substitution saturation between our data set, the data sets of two recent phylogenomic studies and one of a mitogenomic study. We found that mitochondrial DNA is more saturated than nuclear DNA at all the phylogenetic levels studied. Our results emphasize the need for a good evaluation of phylogenetic signal.
A comparative study of customer-based brand equity across selected South African hotels

There is an increasing emphasis on building and maintaining brand equity as the primary driver of success for service organisations, such as holiday resorts and hotels. Limited research on customer-based brand equity within the South African hotel context has been conducted. This study examined the dimensions of brand equity and compared the differential effect that they had on brands within three hotel categories (low, medium and high priced) in South Africa. Convenience sampling was used to obtain a return of 169 self-administered questionnaires in the Gauteng metropolitan area. The results suggest that the hotels did not differ on the dimensions of brand image and brand loyalty; however, they did differ on perceived quality. As perceived quality received is based on customers' expectations, hotels are required to provide quality services so as to meet customers' expectations. The research findings imply that the hotels' communication and operational efforts are effective in creating comprehensive brand equity. Focusing on brand equity from a customer's perspective enables marketing managers to determine how their marketing efforts contribute to the value of their brands in the mind of the customer. However, more effort should be made to improve the perceived quality within each of the hotel chains. Suggestions for future research are offered.
Land use change in Siby, Mali, 1986-1999and 2002: A Remote Sensing Analysis

In this paper，it gave a detailed introduction about the classification process of land use in Siby in Mali Using remote sensing and GIS software’s such as ENVI.4. 3 and ArcGIS 9.3 three Landsat TM images (1986- 1999 and 2002) of Siby were used for the study. After being geometric corrected subset and enhanced, the images were classified into 5 classes: urban area, Farmland, Water, Forest, and Grassland, using the supervised maximum likelihood classifier. As expected, urban area increased throughout the study period 1986, 1999 and 2002 (1%) (15%) (16 %) respectively. The main objective of this paper is to identify the spatial changes of land uses in the Siby commune using multi-temporal satellite images. The implication of this unprecedented growth in urban land is the resulting environmental and ecological problems associated with unplanned urban growth and development such as loose of grassland, deforestation and increased of farmland. The unsustainable agricultural practices along with many other physical, socio-economic and political factors have been the driving forces to a series of land degradation problems. The main objective of this paper is to identify the spatial changes of land uses in the Siby commune using multi-temporal satellite images. Statistical analysis bivariate correlation is used to establish the correlation between land use type populations, income . Human use of land has altered the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Human activities override natural changes of ecosystems caused by climate variations of the past few thousand years. Agriculture, forestry, and other land-management practices have modified entire landscapes and altered plant and animal communities of many ecosystems throughout the world . The most spatially and economically important human uses of land globally include cultivation in various forms, livestock grazing, settlement and construction, reserves and protected lands, and timber extraction . The pattern of land use can give us insight in the factors that have caused the land cover to change. A better understanding of the determining factors of land-use change is of crucial importance to the study of global environmental change. Key Words: Remote Sensing, classification, Land use change
A new cryptic species of Acanthosaura Gray, 1831 (Squamata: Agamidae) from Thailand and Cambodia

A new species of Acanthosaura (Gray 1831), A. cardamomensis sp. nov. from eastern Thailand and western Cambodia is described based on having a combination of unique morphological characteristics. It most closely resembles A. crucigera but differs in having significantly longer postorbital spines, occipital spines, nuchal spines, and dorsal spines; more scales between the fifth canthals; longer maximum dorsal scale length; longer maximum nuchal scale length; a significantly smaller diastema between the nuchal and dorsal crest spines; and significantly more supralabials. Mitochondrial DNA was used to calculate percent sequence divergence between samples of A. crucigera from southern Myanmar and western Thailand and samples of A. cardamomensis sp. nov. from eastern Thailand and western Cambodia. The uncorrected pairwise sequence divergence between populations of A. cardamomensis ranged from 1.2– 3.1% and the range between populations of A. crucigera was 3.8%. The percent sequence divergence between A. cardamomensis sp. nov. and A. crucigera ranged between 10.0–14.6%.
Novel Interleukin-10 Gene Polymorphism Is Linked to Gestational Diabetes in Taiwanese Population

Objective: The association of interleukin-10 (IL-10) polymorphism with diabetes and its complication was recently established, while there were few researches considering the potential role of IL-10 in gestational diabetes (GDM). This study aimed to investigate the association between IL-10 gene rs1800896 (−1082 A/G), rs1800871 (−819 T/C), rs1800872 (−592 A/C), and rs3021094 (3388 A/C) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and GDM susceptibility. Methods: This study included 72 GDM patients and 100 healthy pregnant women. Direct sequencing of the products from polymerase chain reactions of the extracted genomic DNA from study subjects were conducted for analyzing IL-10 gene polymorphism and further genotype frequencies were compared. Plasma IL-10 concentration was measured by ELISA method. Results: The results revealed no significant difference in −592 A/C, −819 T/C, and −1082 A/G genotypes. Significantly increased prevalence of A allele (P = 0.028, OR = 1.69, 95% CI = 1.081–2.64) and A/A genotype (P = 0.031, OR = 2.881, 95% CI = 1.145–7.250) at a previously un-characterized rs3021094 SNP were discovered in the GDM group. Increased IL-10 levels and insulin resistance were also related to the genotype of rs3021094. The risk of GDM was increased when IL-10 level was over 6.5 pg/ml. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that A allele and A/A genotype of rs3021094 SNP in IL-10 gene were linked to increased risk for GDM, IL-10 plasma level and insulin resistance, which could be potential targets for early screening and detection of GDM.
Wage Inequality and Input Trade Liberalization: Firm-Level Evidence from China

This paper investigates how input trade liberalization affects fi rm-level wage inequality between skilled and unskilled labor. A fall in input tariffs generates increased fi rm pro fits, which, in turn, widens wage inequality since skilled labor enjoys a larger proportion of the incremental pro fits. We analyze this type of channel with an augmented Amiti-Davis (2012) model. Using Chinese fi rm-level production data, we fi rst estimate and calculate fi rm-level wage inequality, which is found to be much greater than that in the U.S. After controlling for possible endogeneity, we find evidence consistent with our theoretical prediction that input trade liberalization widens within-fi rm wage inequality.