Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Approximate EM Approach to Sorting Overlapping Spikes

In the past neuroscience has focused on explaining the function of single neurons, but now more and more interest is directed towards the local interactions between neurons. This leads to greater demands on spike sorting algorithms to cope with strongly correlated neurons which predominantly produce overlapping spikes. While existing spike sorting algorithms work in two stages: the first to identify spike times and the second to cluster the found spike shapes, we propose an algorithm based on the expectation-maximisation (EM) algorithm which iterates between finding spike times given an estimate of spike shapes and estimating spike shapes given the current spike times. Overlapping spikes are automatically resolved in this framework and contribute to the learning process. Because the computations involved in the original formulation of the algorithm are prohibitive, we further propose three approximations. Two of them have severe problems with local optima. Although the third overcomes these, this is payed for by a deviation from the original problem setting which proposed correction leads to bad convergence behaviour. Additionally we discuss possible improvements of the third approximation. We define performance in terms of recall and precision. The algorithm is tested and compared to other algorithms on a test data set which has been previously published and very closely resembles real data. On average our algorithm correctly finds a bit less than 2 out of 3 spikes with considerable variation to the better and lower mainly depending on the spike shapes, the number of cells in the data and the noise level. The performance of one of the tested clustering algorithms is often better, although not much. Even a simple matched filter approach often performs as well as our more complicated algorithm. On the other hand, clustering and matched filter exhibit a large drop in performance when only overlapping spikes are considered while the performance of our algorithm stays equal. In conclusion we find that our algorithm works not as good as wished, but automatically handles overlapping spikes as expected.
The Effects of Financial Development on Income Inequality and Poverty

This paper examines the effects of financial development on income inequality and poverty. The results of both cross-country and panel data regressions suggest that inequality and poverty are reduced not only through enhanced loan markets, but also through more developed stock markets. We show that ethnic diversity and the distribution of land are significant and robust determinants of both income inequality and poverty. Finally, we find evidence that government spending leads to a reduction in income inequality in high income countries. In low income countries, however, we find no significant effect.
Potentials and challenges of sustainable taro (Colocasia esculenta) production in Nigeria

During the past years, precisely 1965-1980, yam and taro reigned supreme in the Southern parts of Nigeria. Yam was the king and taro the queen. They were then the staple food of choice and were even offered to the gods. Their acceptance and ascendancy were challenged by the arrival and domestication of the easy growers (plantain, banana, maize and later cassava, tannia and sweetpotato). The easy growers gained recognition and prominence as staple foods and subsequently replaced the earlier staples. Thus, cassava and sweetpotato superseded yam and taro respectively. Nutritionally, taro has broader compliments of vitamins and nutrients compared to other root and tuber crops. The domestication of the new crops which are relatively more yielding and at the same time enjoys international leverage in research and development poses enormous challenges to the future of taro as a major crop. Strategic options for increase in taro production and consumption should be on consumer education and on its nutritional and health benefits. Increased attention on taro research will provoke a better understanding and contributions the crop can offer in the areas of food security, health and economic empowerment.
Performance Evaluation of Bank Branches by the DEA-Tobit Model: The Case of Agricultural Bank Branches in Guilan Province

This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to examine the technical, pure technical, and scale efficiencies of 12 branches of the agricultural bank in Guilan province, Iran over the period of 2012-2016. The first results indicated that scale inefficiency contributed more to overall technical inefficiency than pure technical inefficiency over the studied period. Results of return to scale reveal that decreasing return to scale is the main form of scale inefficiency. Then, overall technical efficiency scores obtained from DEA was regressed over four factors determining bank efficiency (including bank size, profitability, capital adequacy, and liquidity) by the Tobit method. These four variables influenced efficiency differently. Branch size showed a negative, insignificant relationship with technical efficiency. So, it had no impact on efficiency. Profitability was the main parameter in branch efficiency following by liquidity. Profitability and liquidity influenced efficiency positively and significantly. In other words, larger and more profitable branches have higher technical efficiency.
Incident investigations by the regulatory authority of Swedish healthcare – a 20-year perspective

Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe procedural changes in hospital incident investigations and show the consequences of these changes over time. Methods: A two-stage method was used. First component of the study was a content analysis of 87 incident investigation sconducted 1995-2014 by the regulatory authority after adverse events in a Swedish university hospital. Second component was conducting semi-structured interviews with 11 investigators from all regulatory authority regional offices in Sweden. Results: In a minority of incident investigations, where further demands for action were required by the regulatory authority, a major portion of these were aimed at the micro-level. A plan for follow-up was expressed in only one tenth of the investigations. All investigators had a background from the healthcare system and saw this as advantageous. Their personal memory was claimed to be the only tool when referring to previous cases. Less fieldwork, more office work and more uniformity of language were recognised changes in comparison over time. The role of doing “auditing” was the most common description by the investigators themselves. Conclusions: The micro-level focus of the investigations reflected an organisational structure within the regulatory authority. We saw signs of parallel system weaknesses within the Swedish healthcare system with a clear absence of formalised organisational memory and a malfunctioning follow-up system of incident investigations. This can be seen both regarding the healthcare providers and the regulatory authority. The reports from the qualitative interviews data indicated that “auditing at the office” was considered the main occupation in incident investigations conducted by the regulatory authority.
MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE AND RECOVERY POTENTIAL: BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVE

A total of 7690 tons of municipal solid waste generated daily at the six major cities of Bangladesh, namely, Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal and Sylhet, as estimated in 2005. Sampling was done at different waste generation sources such as residential, commercial, institutional and open areas, in different seasons. The composition of the entire waste stream was about 74.4% organic matter, 9.1% paper, 3.5% plastic, 1.9% textile and wood, 0.8% leather and rubber, 1.5% metal, 0.8% glass and 8% other waste. The per capita generation of municipal solid waste was ranged from 0.325 to 0.485 kg/cap/day while the average rate was 0.387 kg/cap/day as measured in the six major cities. The potential for waste recovery and reduction based on the waste characteristics are evaluated and it is predicted that 21.64 million US$/yr can be earned from recycling and composting of municipal solid waste.
The experimental assessment of the effect of polypropylene fibers on improvement of Nano-silica concrete behavior

In this study the influence of water-cement ratio on the mechanical properties (compressive, abrasion, tensile, flexural strength and permeability) of Nano-silica concrete reinforced with polypropylene fibers is evaluated. The specimens contain 4% of Nano-silica, 0.30, 0.35, 0.40, 0.45 and 0.50 of water-cement ratios and 0, 0.10, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.35 percent by volume of polypropylene fibers. Other design features remained fixed in all concrete samples. The results of the experiments showed that with decreasing the ratio of water to cement from 0.50 to 0.30, all the mechanical properties of the concrete were improved. In addition, the test results showed a significant increase in mechanical properties improvement of concrete by using polypropylene fibers. Tensile strength, flexural strength and abrasion resistance of concrete increased up to 22%, 40%, and 27% respectively for 28 days age specimens. Also, considerable reduction of hydraulic conductivity coefficient to 51% indicates high durability of these types of concrete. Compressive strength had increment of 22%, 15% and 14% for 7, 28 and 90 days age specimens respectively.
Controlled Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Using Double Reductants and Its Voltammetric Characteristics Study

Constructing robust silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) with good shape and dispersibility is of particular interest in analytical applications. Herein, monodispersibility AgNPs with the average size of 20 nm have been successfully prepared via one-pot method using sodium borohydride and trisodium citrate as co-reductants. The introduction of sodium borohydride greatly accelerated the rate of nucleation, which can effectively solve the problem of broad size distribution. Both shape and dispersibility of AgNPs can be effectively adjusted by simple control of refluxing time or concentrations of the sodium borohydride. We also studied the voltammetric characteristics of the AgNPs using Ag/AgCl solid-state voltammetry. An intense and stable current peak at a low potential could be obtained, which could provide a unique advantage in analytical applications. Copyright © 2016 BCREC GROUP. All rights reserved Received: 5 th November 2015; Revised: 21 st January 2016; Accepted: 22 nd January 2016 How to Cite : Duan, Y. , Xu, Z. , Jiang, X. (2016). Controlled Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Using Double Reductants and Its Voltammetric Characteristics Study. Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis , 11 (1): 115-119. (doi:10.9767/bcrec.11.1.433.115-119) Permalink/DOI : http://dx.doi. org/10.9767/bcrec.11. 1.433. 115-119 Article Metrics: (click on the button below to see citations in Scopus)
Gravity inversion by means of growing bodies

This paper presents a gravity inversion method for determining the volumes of bodies with pre‐established density contrasts. The method works step‐by‐step on a prismatic partition of the subsurface volume, expanding the anomalous bodies to fit the observed gravity values in a systematic exploration of model possibilities. The process is treated in a 3-D context; at the same time, it can determine a simple regional trend. Moreover, positive and negative density contrasts are simultaneously accepted. The solution is obtained by a double condition: (1) the 𝓁2-fitness to the observed gravity data (model fitness) and (2) the minimization of the total (weighted) anomalous mass (model smoothness). A positive parameter is used to balance the two minimization terms. The method is applied to a simulated example and also to a real example: the volcanic island of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain). In both cases, the results obtained show the possibilities of the method.
Distribuições k-modificadas da família série de potência uniparamétrica

CARVALHO, S. O. k-Modified distributions of the uniparametric power series family. 2017. 96 p. Dissertação (Mestrado em Estatística – Interinstitucional de Pós-Graduação em Estatística) – Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e de Computação, Universidade de São Paulo, São Carlos – SP, 2017. In this work, it is proposed the family of k-modified power series distributions to model count data sets that may or may not present some discrepancy in the frequency of the observation k in relation to the power series distribution associated. It is important to highlight that employing the term "modified" does not imply the same context to the one employed by Gupta (1974), which introduced the class of power series modified distributions represented by the acronym MPSD. In this work, modification can be understood as the inclusion of a parameter in the probability mass function of the power series distribution, allowing this family of distributions to properly model a data set for cases where there is an excess (inflation), deficiency (deflation), lack or even when the frequency of observations k are in agreement with the supposition of a distribution belonging to the power series family. It is presented, for this new family of distributions, properties like distribution function, characteristic function, moment generating function, order statistics, among others. Moreover the family is also contextualized as a mixture model. The distributions considered to construct this new family are uniparametric and belong to the power series family, for which the probability mass can be written as function of its mean.
THE MILLISECOND MAGNETAR CENTRAL ENGINE IN SHORT GRBs

One favored progenitor model for short duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is the coalescence of two neutron stars (NS–NS). One possible outcome of such a merger would be a rapidly spinning, strongly magnetized neutron star (known as a millisecond magnetar). These magnetars may be “supra-massive,” implying that they would collapse to black holes after losing centrifugal support due to magnetic dipole spin down. By systematically analyzing the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT)-XRT light curves of all short GRBs detected by Swift, we test how consistent the data are with this central engine model of short GRBs. We find that the so-called “extended emission” feature observed with BAT in some short GRBs is fundamentally the same component as the “internal X-ray plateau” observed in many short GRBs, which is defined as a plateau in the light curve followed by a very rapid decay. Based on how likely a short GRB is to host a magnetar, we characterize the entire Swift short GRB sample into three categories: the “internal plateau” sample, the “external plateau” sample, and the “no plateau” sample. Based on the dipole spin-down model, we derive the physical parameters of the putative magnetars and check whether these parameters are consistent with expectations from the magnetar central engine model. The derived magnetar surface magnetic field B p ? > and the initial spin period P0 fall into a reasonable range. No GRBs in the internal plateau sample have a total energy exceeding the maximum energy budget of a millisecond magnetar. Assuming that the beginning of the rapid fall phase at the end of the internal plateau is the collapse time of a supra-massive magnetar to a black hole, and applying the measured mass distribution of NS–NS systems in our Galaxy, we constrain the neutron star equation of state (EOS). The data suggest that the NS EOS is close to the GM1 model, which has a maximum non-rotating NS mass of M TOV ∼ 2.37 M ⊙ ? > .
Influence of Different Sterilization Conditions on the Growth and Exopolysaccharide of Streptococcus thermophilus and Co-Cultivation with Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus OLL1073R-1

The sterilization conditions between experiment and dairy industrial level are different and concern about influence on product’s qualities. In this study, the fermentation properties of Streptococcus thermophilus, alone and in combination with Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, were evaluated in skim milk that had been subjected to distinct sterilization conditions. Growth, organic acid generation, and EPS production were determined using pasteurized or autoclaved milk. When S. thermophilus was cultivated in pasteurized skim milk, the growth was strain-dependent. On the other hand, growth of S. thermophilus was accelerated in autoclaved milk. Exocellular polysaccharide (EPS) production by L. bulgaricus was not affected by the combination of S. thermophilus strains. Thus, we observed that yogurt fermented by L. bulgaricus was minimally affected by the combination of S. thermophilus strains; growth of L. bulgaricus was maintained under the constant environment. These results should facilitate the development of fermented milk produced from L. bulgaricus in the dairy industry.
Genetic Algorithms for Job Scheduling in Cloud Computing

Efficient job scheduling algorithms needed to improve the resource utilization in cloud computing, the role of a good scheduling algorithm on cloud computing is to minimize the total completion time for last job on the system. In this paper, we present a genetic-based task scheduling algorithms in order to minimize Maximum Completion Time Makespan. These algorithms combines different techniques such as list scheduling and earliest completion time (ECT) with genetic algorithm. We reviewed, evaluated and compared the proposed algorithms against one of the well-known Genetic Algorithms available in the literature, which has been proposed for task scheduling problem on heterogeneous computing systems. After an exhaustive computational analysis we identify that the proposed Genetic algorithms show a good performance overcoming the evaluated method in different problem sizes and complexity for a large benchmark set of instances.
The Study Plays Fighting to Cope with Children Aggression at Primary School

Aggressive behaviour among young people represent a global concern and a considerable number of children and adolescent report having been victimized or having bullied others [1]. In Vietnam, the country where this study was conducted, it has been estimated that 45.5% of girls and 46.7% of boys aged 10-16 reported having been a victim in some offensive, disrespectful and/ or violent episodes in the previous 12 months.
An approach to handling inconsistent ontology definitions based on the translation of description logics into defeasible logic programming

The Semantic Web is a future vision of the web where stored information has exact meaning, thus enabling computers to understand and reason on the basis of such information. Assigning semantics to web resources is addressed by means of ontology definitions which are meant to be written in an ontology description language such as OWL-DL that is based on so-called Description Logics (DL). Although ontology definitions expressed in DL can be processed with existing DL reasoners, such DL reasoners are incapable of dealing with inconsistent ontology definitions. Previous research has determined that a subset of DL can be effectively translated into an equivalent subset of logic programming. We propose a method for dealing with inconsistent ontology definitions in the Semantic Web. Our proposal involves mapping DL ontologies into equivalent DeLP programs. That is, given an OWL-DL ontology OOwl, an equivalent DL ontology ODL can be obtained. Provided ODL satisfies certain restrictions, it can be translated into an equivalent DeLP program ODeLP . Therefore, given a query Q w.r. t. OOwl, a dialectical process will be performed to determine if Q is warranted w.r. t. ODeLP .
Block Cache Architecture to Enable Low-Voltage Operation

Power consumption is a major concern for modern processors. Voltage scaling is one of the most effective mechanisms to reduce power consumption. However, voltage scaling is limited by large memory structures, such as caches, where many cells can fail at low voltage operation. As a result, voltage scaling is limited by a minimum voltage (Vccmin), below which the processor may not operate reliably. Researchers have proposed architectural mechanisms, error detection and correction techniques, and circuit solutions to allow the cache to operate reliably at low voltages. Architectural solutions reduce cache capacity at low voltages at the expense of logic complexity. Circuit solutions change the SRAM cell organization and have the disadvantage of reducing the cache capacity (for the same area) even when the system runs at a high voltage. Error detection and correction mechanisms use Error Correction Codes (ECC) codes to keep the cache operation reliable at low voltage, but have the disadvantage of increasing cache access time. In this thesis, we propose a novel architectural technique that uses spare cache blocks to back up a set-associative cache at low voltage. In our mechanism, we perform memory tests at low voltage to detect errors in all cache lines and tag them as faulty or fault-free. We have designed shifter and adder circuits for our architecture, and evaluated our design using the SimpleScalar simulator. We constructed a fault model for our design to find the cache set failure probability at low voltage. Our evaluation shows that, at 485mV, our designed cache operates with an equivalent bit failure probability to a
Glucosylglycerol on performance of prebiotic potential.

Background: Glucosylglycerol (GG), an organic compound constitutes a structurally diverse group of small organic molecules, which has a glycosidic chemical structure, where is a powerful osmolyte which catalyzed by sucrose phosphorylase in the presence of sucrose and glycerol as the donor and acceptor substrate. Context and purpose of this study: This research aims to study the potential of prebiotic properties from GG compared with three commercial oligosaccharides (FOS, inulin and lactulose) which have the prebiotic properties. Results: The cultures with GG and FOS showed statistically significant difference (P<0.05) capacity to stimulated both probiotic strains (Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactobacillus plantarum ) and presented high ability to inhibit four intestinal pathogens ( Bacillus cereus , Escherichia coli , Samonella paratyphi and Staphyloccous aureus ) as displayed from wider inhibition zone compared with the culture without oligosaccharide. The tolerance ability of different gastrointestinal conditions (alpha-amylase, bile extract and HCl) in the culture medium with GG presented the highest percentage of survival (6.50%) after incubated with HCl for 3 hours (significant difference as P<0.05). The culture of L. acidophilus with GG in the medium displayed maximum lactic acid concentration (1.46 mg/mL) after 48 incubation hours. Conclusions: GG has high potential of prebiotic properties for probiotic growth stimulation, pathogenic inhibition and gastrointestinal tolerance. In addition, GG can introduce probiotic for high production of lactic acid concentration in the culture media. From these results, GG is promising for application and development to become an efficiency of functional food in the coming future. Keywords : glucosylglycerol, prebiotic, probiotic, pathogen inhibition, gastrointestinal tolerance, lactic acid