Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estimation of atmospheric CO 2 concentrations through the data assimilation of AIRS radiances in the ECMWF 4 D-Var system

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been obtained from AIRS radiance data within the ECMWF data assimilation system. A subset of channels from the AIRS instrument on board the NASA Aqua platform has been assimilated providing estimates of tropospheric and stratospheric column-average CO2 mixing ratios. Although global estimates are obtained, the information content of the tropospheric estimates at midand high-latitudes is limited, and results are therefore only presented for the tropical region. First results for April 2003 show considerable geographical variability compared to the background with values ranging between 372 and 383 ppmv. These CO2 values are representative for a layer between the tropopause and about 600 hPa. The monthly mean random error is about 1 %. Careful error analysis has been carried out to minimize any systematic errors. This study has demonstrated the feasibility of global CO2 estimation using AIRS data in an NWP data assimilation system. In the future the system will be improved to treat CO2 as a full 3-dimensional atmospheric variable, including transport.
DOES THE BON CURVE APPLY TO INFRASTRUCTURE MARKETS ?

Bon (1992) argues that construction demand is low where economies have yet to expand. During their expansion phase, the growth in construction outstrips the rest of the economy and therefore increases as a share of GDP. As the economy approaches maturity, the rate of increase in construction slows and as a result the proportion of GDP taken up by construction declines. While this may indeed be the case for construction activity as a whole, it would appear that at least one submarket within the construction sector does not follow that pattern. Infrastructure output may be seen as continuing to increase more rapidly than GDP regardless of the state of maturity of the economy. This may be because as the economy grows, more infrastructure is required to support ever more sophisticated requirements such as rapid movement of goods, increased volume of traffic and greater expectations and use of quality urban environments as commuters increase their demands for rapid transit and improved quality of life. Using a model of infrastructure based on infrastructure as a share of construction output in the UK, infrastructure in all countries was estimated. This enabled a comparison of infrastructure in the different countries to be compared. This was used to show the relationship between infrastructure as a percentage of GDP and the level of income per head. While both low and high income countries tend to have low levels of spending on infrastructure, the majority of countries in the mid range of income tend to have a wide range of infrastructure to GDP, with no particular pattern. These results may have implications for interpreting the Bon curve. Indeed, the current call for investment in infrastructure even at a time of recession is witness to the ever increasing demand for roads, rail, air, communication, water and sewage services, and energy even in relatively wealthy economies.
Comparative Study of Routing Protocols for WMN

Today, Wireless Mesh Networks has been recognized as a new attractive communication paradigm due to their ease of deployment and ability of fault tolerance. WMN is a multi-hop wireless network which builds high performance infrastructure and provides efficient communication using various Routing Protocols. Traditional routing protocols like AODV, DSR and DSDV etc. support Adhoc networking in which devices doesn’t have capability to provide fault tolerance. To overcome this, several types of Opportunistic based routing protocols have been proposed i.e. EXOR and SOAR etc. which support combination of both Adhoc and Mesh networking. All these protocols like EXOR and SOAR exploit the broadcast nature and provide the capability of fault tolerance using multiple alternate paths and redundant copies of data packets. Further, we have shown the comparative performance analysis of EXOR and SOAR using various network parameters i.e. network throughput, robustness (against node/link failure), hop count, bandwidth consumption and traffic congestion for multiple different nodes network. Keywords— WMN; Fault Tolerance; EXOR; SOAR ; ROMER
Antibody response of goats to gel based combined vaccine against Peste des Petits Ruminants, Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia and Foot and Mouth Disease.

Present study was designed to prepare and evaluate gel based combined vaccine against Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR), Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia (CCPP), Foot and Mouth Disease “O serotype” (FMDO) to mitigate the cost and frequency of the vaccination. Gel based vaccines contain either single immunogen (monovalent) of PPR, CCPP or FMDO, two (bivalent) PPR+FMDO, PPR+CCPP, FMDO+CCPPP or three (trivalent) PPR+CCPP+FMDO. Each dose (0.5 ml) of either of the vaccines contained 105 tissue culture infective dose (TCID50) units of FMDO virus, 107 TCID50 units of PPR virus and 0.15 mg of Mycoplasma mycoides capri. Each of the vaccine was injected subcutaneously to each of the goats (n=4). Antibody response of goats to FMDO, PPR and CCPP was determined by complement fixation test (CFT), virus neutralization test (VNT) and enzyme linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA), respectively at 0, 60, 120 and 180 days post-priming. Antibody response of the goats to either of the immunogen was not significantly different irrespective to the form of vaccine (monovalent, bivalent or multivalent vaccine) (P>0.05). It indicated that either of the immunogen did not interfere the immunogenesis process of other immunogens in the same vaccine.
Contracting to Dis-Incentivize

Research on collaborative ties in business markets has pre-dominantly studied how governance forms balance potential gains and transaction hazards within the relationship. Using an incomplete contracting approach, we examine how the OEM trades off gains obtained within the relationship with its supplier against protection of resources that were developed outside such relationship. Adapting the recent theoretical model by Zanarone, Lo, and Madsen (2016) to the context of industrial markets, we hypothesize that OEMs with more valuable pre-existing resources choose closed-price contracts over open-price contracts to dis-incentivize suppliers from overinvesting in capabilities that may enable them to appropriate those resources. Consistent with this model, but not with alternative governance theories, our data on component procurement contracts show that: (1) OEMs tend to use closed-price contracts when their pre-existing resources are more valuable, and the use of closed-price contracts reduces both, (2) the supplier’s dedicated investment and, (3) its value-add to the OEM’s end product. Our work provides evidence on how parties, cognizant of the “dark side�? of entering inter-firm collaborations, strategically balance the conflicting goals of safeguarding pre-existing resources and creating value.
What Determines Bid-Ask Spreads in Over-the-Counter Markets?

We document cross-sectional variation in bid-ask spreads in the U.S. corporate bond market and use the variation to test OTC theories of the bid-ask spread. Bid-ask spreads, measured by realized transaction costs, increase with maturity for investment grade but not for speculative grade bonds. For short-maturity bonds, spreads increase with credit risk while long-maturity bonds rated AAA/AA have significantly higher spreads than other investment grade bonds. We find that dealer inventory is the most important determinant of the variation in bid-ask spreads. How bond sales travel through the network of dealers also explains part of the variation, particularly for speculative grade bonds. In contrast, search-and-bargaining frictions and asymmetric information have limited explanatory power.
The business strategy of “ Laksa ” culinary tourism in Tangerang , Indonesia

Laksa Tangerang is one of Tangerang's culinary specialties and has the potential to be developed as one of the culinary tourism products in Tangerang considering that the tourism sector is one of the sector contributors of foreign exchange which is quite a large provider for regional and national development. This study aims to develop marketing strategies in an effort to develop Laksa Tangerang culinary tourism so that it can improve the quality and quantity of traditional culinary entrepreneurs in the city of Tangerang. By using primary data obtained from interviews and observations on culinary entrepreneurs and artisans, as well as secondary data from related institutions an IF / EF analysis and SWOT analysis were undertaken. Destination marketers face a new need to perfect and link their culinary experience branding and marketing strategies so as to capture great tourism market share. This means that non-traditional tourist destinations such as Tangerang, must make some effort to to brand and market themselves so as to get a sustained tourist in-flow. The results of the study are expected to be made into recommendations in the development of culinary tourism in Tangerang as an effort to empower traditional culinary entrepreneurs.
Sleep profiles in elite swimmers

This study aims to describe the sleeping patterns during different training phases in competitive swimmers. Twelve national and international level swimmers (3 females, 9 males) were monitored during 4 different phases consisting of a preparation training phase, a taper phase, a competition phase and a rest phase. Sleep parameters were assessed using wrist activity monitors and self-report sleep diaries. There was a moderately higher (d = 0.70 – 1.00) sleep onset latency during the competition phase compared to taper, train and rest phase. Trivial to small differences were observed for total sleep time between phases (d = 0.05 – 0.40). Sleep efficiency was moderately higher (d = 0.60 – 0.75) in the training and taper phases compared to competition and rest. Restfulness and Fragmentation Index (FI) were lowest in the rest with differences between phases being small (d = 0.43 – 0.51) for restfulness and small to moderate (d = 0.43 – 0.62) for FI. Time in and out of bed was very largely later (d = 1.96 – 2.34) in rest compared to the other phases. Total nap time was moderately lower in rest (d = 1.13 – 1.18) compared to the training and competition phases whilst there was a small difference (d = 0.46) compared to taper. To conclude, whilst there were trivial to small differences in sleep quantity between phases, there are small to moderate differences in other sleep parameters. Specifically, sleep onset latency was higher during the competition phase. Additionally, this study highlights the substantial between-individual variations in sleep responses during different training phases.
Fundamental research on the verbal transformation effect in Japanese

The verbal transformation effect is a phenomenon that occurs when a person hears a repeated single word without pause and illusory changes in the physically unchanging word are induced. There are few studies of the verbal transformation effect in Japanese. Therefore, in this study, we examine whether the verbal transformation effect occurs with respect to changes in the inter stimulus interval (ISI) in Japanese. The studied ISIs were 0 sec, 0.02 sec, 0.05 sec, 0.1 sec, and 0.15 sec. The subjects were 16 native Japanese university students. The stimuli consisted of a word with three syllables. We found that the perceptual transition time changed with changes in the ISI. “The number of perceived stimuli” until the perceptual transition occurred was 24.7 for an ISI of 0 sec but 57.4 for an ISI of 0.15 sec. ANOVA showed a significant effect for “the number of perceived stimuli” (F(4,73) = 2.585 (p = 0.0439)). Moreover, a post hoc test revealed that “the number of perceived stimuli” for an ISI of 0.15 s was significantly larger than that for an ISI of 0 sec (p = 0.0051). The mechanisms for the verbal transformation effect are discussed.
Amlodipine and valsartan improving effect on the survival rate and deleterious pathological changes in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats treated with metformin

Diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension usually co-exist, and when this happens, the prognosis would be worse than each disease alone. Given this, we evaluated the possible effects of valsartan and amlodipine administration on metformin-treated diabetic rats models induced by streptozotocin. Male Wistar rats (200–350 g) were fasted overnight. Then, we induced DM by administrating a single dose of 40 mg/kg streptozotocin (IP), which was confirmed after 48 h. Animals with blood sugar ≥ 200 mg/dl were considered diabetic and divided into four diabetic groups of untreated diabetic animals (Group B), diabetic animals treated with metformin (Group C), diabetic animals treated with metformin plus amlodipine (Group D), and diabetic rats treated with metformin plus valsartan (Group E). There was also a group A, consisting of normal rats with no drug treatment. After six weeks of treatment, we sacrificed the animals under chloroform anesthesia, and their blood samples were collected for hematological and biochemical analyses. The mortality rate in untreated diabetic rats was 100% before 6 weeks, but anti-diabetic treatment (metformin) significantly (P < 0.05) improved the survival rate and controlled their blood glucose level. The addition of antihypertensive drugs (amlodipine and valsartan) enhanced this curative effect. The various treated groups showed ameliorations in pathologic changes and biochemical indices, as well as, evidence of organ protection, compared with the untreated diabetic group. The study showed that adding an antihypertensive drug (amlodipine or valsartan) to metformin regimen improved outcomes in diabetic rats compared to using metformin alone.
Impact of Firms ’ Technology Strategies on Market Competition : Experience from Selected Industries of Indian Manufacturing Sector during the Post-Reform Period

In India, the process of economic reforms during the last two and half decades have increased competitive pressures on firms resulting in adoption of a variety of strategies for their survival and growth. While the trends and patterns of these strategic responses in general have varied widely across the major industries of Indian manufacturing sector as well as over time, technology strategies seem to have undergone considerable changes in recent years in respect of both its nature and intensity. In this context, the present paper is an attempt to examine how the technology strategies on market structure of technology intensive industries of Indian manufacturing sector. Using panel dataset for selected industries of Indian manufacturing sector and applying the system generalized method of moments (GMM), the present paper finds that market concentration or firms’ dominance is higher in industries where the market is already concentrated or dominated by a few firms, selling efforts are higher or financial performance is better. On the other hand, market is found to be less concentrated or dominated for industries that are more open to international trade. Importantly, it is found that both technology strategies and mergers and acquisitions do not have any significant impact on market structure. Thus, the findings of the present paper have important implications for fine tuning of policies relating to technology development, international trade and competition, especially in respect of their inter-relationships.
Spatio-Temporal Associative Representation for Video Person Re-Identification

Learning discriminative spatio-temporal representation is the key for solving video re-identiﬁcation (re-id) challenges. Most existing methods focus on learning appearance features and/or selecting image frames, but ignore optimising the compatibility and interaction of appearance and motion attentive information. To address this limitation, we propose a novel model to learning Spatio-Temporal Associative Representation (STAR). We design local frame-level spatio-temporal association to learn discriminative attentive appearance and short-term motion features, and global video-level spatio-temporal association to form compact and discriminative holistic video representation. We further introduce a pyramid ranking regulariser for facilitating end-to-end model optimisation. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superiority of STAR against state-of-the-art methods on four video re-id benchmarks, including MARS, DukeMTMC-VideoReID, iLIDS-VID and PRID-2011.
Extracellular Fibril Production by Freshwater Algae and Cyanobaeteria Tat

In order to study the ability of freshwater algae and cyanobacteria to form extracellular fibrils, a screening test using ru thenium red (RR) staining was carried out on 28 species. Five o f these were examined for growth and product ion o f fibrillar material in culture media o f different phosphate (P0 contents. RR-staining and uronic acid determinat ions at various stages o f algal growth were complemented by electron microscopy o f the cells and o f fibrillar material released into the medium. The lower Pi concentrat ions enhanced growth ofMicrasterias radiata, Eremosphaera sp., and Microcystis aeruginosa, and had little or no effect on growth o f a Xanthidium sp. and Scenedesmus quadricauda. Extracellular uronic acid product ion, which was higher in low Pi medium in M. radiata, M. aeruginosa, and Xanthidium sp., could reach levels o f 50 mg/li ter or more. Algae with high propor t ions of RR-posi t ive cells (M. radiata, Eremosphaera sp., Xanthidium sp., and M. aeruginosa) produced high levels o f slime-like material and distinct fibrils that were often seen at tached to the cell surface and only slowly released into the medium. No such material was found in cultures (or supernatants) o f Sc. quadricauda, which also produced relatively low amounts of polyuronic acids. Specific types o f filaments, often forming "fascicles" with rectangular arrays o f globular particles were observed by negative staining electron microscopy o f some algal cultures. RR-posi t ive material was also observed in the cytoplasm and on the cell walls and surfaces o f M. radiata and M. aeruginosa.
ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF MINING IMPACTS ON THE INTENSITY OF DAMAGE TO MASONRY BUILDING STRUCTURES

The paper presents the results of the analysis of the extent of damage to building structures subjected to mining impacts in the form of tremors and continuous surface deformation. The two methods which were used included the multiple regression analysis and the Support Vector Machine – SVM, which belongs to the socalled Machine Learning. The study used the database of the design, technical condition and potential causes of damage to 199 non-renovated buildings, up to the age of 20 years, of a traditional brick construction, located in the mining area of Legnica-Głogów Copper District (LGOM). The conducted analysis allowed for the qualitative assessment of the influence of mining impacts on the extent of damage to the studied buildings.
Spectropathology of Adrenal Gland is this Possible?

Nowadays we can observe increasing attention toward the possibility of the use of FTIR microspectroscopy as a complementary diagnostic method. Research is being conducted to find biomolecular markers of pathological states, including neoplastic changes. To ensure the reliability of the method, wide-range population studies should be done. The best material for studies are fresh, not fixed tissue samples. But in case of rare diseases it is difficult to gather a sufficiently large group of samples. In such case formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples are valuable research object. In presented study we tried to find out the biomolecular markers of adrenal gland lesions based on archival FFPE samples using FTIR microspectroscopy. There were three investigated groups: normal adrenocortical tissue, adrenocortical adenoma and adrenocortical carcinoma which is very rare (about 5% of all detected adrenal pathological alterations). We found that the most significant difference is the large content of carbohydrates and nucleic acids in adrenocortical carcinoma. The other difference is rather less significant. Presented study has a preliminary character. They showed the possibility of using the archival FFPE adrenal gland tissue samples but in future it should be considered the application of more sophisticated analysis methods which probably would reveal more difference evidence for classification.
The PETRA III Girder-Concept

Since alignment tolerances of the focusing quadrupoles and the dipoles at a 3rd generation synchrotron light source like the PETRA III ring are very tight and downtime allowances for survey are low, a concept of pre-aligned magnets on girders has been developed. This presentation focuses on the development efforts of a low-cost girder system with cheap but nevertheless effective alignment mechanics. Some results of girder deformations during transportation of readily assembled and precisely aligned girders are shown. Besides that, achievements in the development of new ultrasonic hardware for the recently developed DESY-HLS are presented.
Robust Multi-Stereo Visual Inertial Odometry

In this paper we present a novel multi-stereo visual-inertial odometry (VIO) framework which aims to improve the robustness of a robot’s state estimate during aggressive motion and in visually challenging environments. Our system uses a fixed-lag smoother which jointly optimizes for poses and landmarks across all stereo pairs. We also makes use of nonlinear factor recovery (NFR) in order to enforce a sparse information matrix after marginalization while also maintaining the information contained in the dense priors. We propose a novel 1-point RANdom SAmple Consensus (RANSAC) algorithm which is able to jointly perform outlier rejection across features from all stereo pairs. The result is a VIO system which is able to maintain an accurate state estimate under conditions which have typically proven to be challenging for traditional state-of-the-art VIO systems. We demonstrate the benefits of our proposed multi-stereo algorithm by evaluating it against VINS-Mono on three challenging simulated micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) flights. We show that our proposed algorithm is able to achieve a significantly lower average trajectory error on all three flights.