Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding Credit Card Liquidity

This paper considers the growth of credit card liquidity in explaining household credit card use. With data from the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances we identify key predictors of new credit card charges for households. The data suggest credit card spending appears motivated by low-cost access to credit card liquidity. This is consistent with previous research arguing credit card use is rational, but is contrary to research that emphasizes liquidity constraints in explaining credit card behavior. New credit card charges are primarily predicted by the amount of available liquidity on the card (the limit minus the balance) for all households, controlling for income and other factors. The data also show that credit card spending is primarily done by the more educated and wealthier households, at all income quintiles, and that liquidity constraints have little to do with credit card use.
Strategic development of service orientated architecture in supply chain networks

The buyers market of the 21st century is creating a need for companies to be much more careful about their relative strategic positioning and competitive advantages. The traditional 'make and sell' attitude is rapidly becoming a customer orientated 'sense and respond' philosophy. Further, the needs for avoidance of waste, cost efficiency and service to the customer have the potential to become the major competitive focus especially in industries where there is little differentiation in product design and technology. This paper examines the strategic opportunities for participants in the pipeline construction industry to adopt state of the art industry philosophies. It is postulated that competitors are relying on functional hierarchy and command and control governance where operations rely on a chain of commitments, linked by process designs that are poorly connected and difficult to reconfigure. A new model is proposed where organizations can utilize strategic design for action, consisting of dynamic modular capabilities that are driven by context and coordination. Traditional supply chains involve an enormously complex and often adversarial web of contractors and suppliers where numerous reasons for error and departure from the plan are created. The model proposed here utilizes ideas of complexity absorption, described by Ashmos et al, (2000) rather than the traditional complexity reduction found in Tayloristic organizations that typify many industries, where predictable stability becomes the goal and change is considered to be a too radical departure from the norm. The model described here is built on the premise that complexity dealt with by absorption creates an organization that is strategically superior because it becomes a complex adaptive system that is unique. Complexity absorption is differentiated by varied information exchange mechanisms, the emergence of multiple interpretations due to conflicting goals and structural flexibility that can make sense of interactions. The paper contrasts tradition views of supply chain processes with a proposed view consisting of design, plan deliver and maintain, centred on integrated access to all processes. A proposed Pipeline Construction Portal and Service Oriented Architecture is illustrated. The model is internet-based and has three main constituents of Web Services, Portal and Client Services. Strategic implications for internet technology in this application are discussed where it is hypothesized that internet technology has now become a very powerful strategic tool because much improved usability has allowed a viable proposition for firms to build a strategic position by unique internet applications of the type described in this paper.
Quelles synergies entre connaissances scientifiques et empiriques ? L'exemple des cultures du safran et de la truffe

Dans un contexte de redefinition des fonctions de l’agriculture dans la societe, les « systemes de connaissance agricole » doivent concevoir de nouveaux modes de collaboration entre agriculteurs, agents de developpement et scientifiques, mais aussi renouveler les connaissances a produire. Peu de travaux portent sur le contenu des connaissances a construire dans ces situations. Ce texte part de l’hypothese que des connaissances agronomiques peuvent emerger d’une synergie entre connaissances empiriques des praticiens et connaissances scientifiques. Il s’attache a explorer cette nouvelle forme de production de connaissances, a partir des cas du safran et de la truffe, deux cultures dont la maitrise technique constitue un frein majeur a leur developpement. En confrontant les donnees sur les connaissances des safraniers et trufficulteurs a la litterature scientifique et technique existant sur ces cultures et a la theorie agronomique, ce texte propose quatre modes de combinaison entre connaissances empiriques et scientifiques.
Phytosociological comparative analysis of two localities of carex pulicaris l. In the Lodz province (Central Poland)

Summary. Carex pulicaris L. is a rare Sub-Atlantic species. In Poland it is classified as an endangered species (E). The paper presents a comparative analysis of two localities of Carex pulicaris in Central Poland. Floral inventories revealed that Carex pulicaris can be found in different plant communities: where species from classes Scheuchzerio-Caricetea Nigrae, Phragmitetea and Molinio-Arrhenatheretea dominate, as well as where species from the following classes where found: Nardo-Callunetea, Molinio-Arrhenatheretea and Vaccinio-Piceetea. In order to estimate the present condition of both populations and forecast their further occurrence and threats resulting from succession, a permanent many-year monitoring should be carried out.
Usability of Error Messages for Introductory Students

Error messages are an important tool programmers use to help find and fix mistakes or issues in their code. When an error message is unhelpful, it can be difficult to find the issue and may impose additional challenges in learning the language and concepts. Error messages are especially critical for introductory programmers in understanding problems with their code. Unfortunately, not all error messages in programming are beneficial for novice programmers. This paper discusses the general usability of error messages for introductory programmers, analyses of error messages in compilers and DrRacket, and two methodologies intended to improve error handling.
Adaptive critic design with graph Laplacian for online learning control of nonlinear systems

In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) and approximate dynamic programming (ADP) have been widely studied in the community of artificial intelligence and machine learning. As an important class of RL and ADP methods, adaptive critic designs (ACDs) with function approximation have been studied to realize online learning control of nonlinear dynamical systems. However, how to construct efficient feature representations for approximating value functions or policies is still a difficult problem. In this paper, ACDs with graph Laplacian (GL) are proposed by integrating manifold learning methods into feature representations of ACDs. An online learning control algorithm called graph Laplacian dual heuristic programming (GL‐DHP) is presented, and its performance is analyzed both theoretically and empirically. Because of the nonlinear approximation ability of feature representation with GL, the GL‐DHP method has much better performance than previous DHP methods with manually designed neural networks. Simulation results on learning control of a ball and plate system, which is a typical nonlinear dynamical system with continuous state and action spaces, demonstrate the effectiveness of the GL‐DHP method. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Barriers to Internal Quality Assurance in Ghanaian Private Tertiary Institutions

This study examines the understanding of the national quality assurance system and existing barriers to the implementation of internal quality assurance in some Private Tertiary Institutions in Ghana. Academic, administrative staff and students from the private institutions completed a set of questionnaires that tapped their perceptions on issues causing implementation barriers to internal quality assurance. Quality management decisions emerged as a major barrier to the implementation of internal quality assurance, especially the failure to link identification of quality objectives to the institutional strategic plan. Student involvement, lack of effective coordination, weaker emphasis on strategic planning and quality management as well as dominance culture not opened to change and improvement were barriers that adversely affected the implementation of internal quality assurance. The study concludes that transparency, openness, responsiveness and creativity should form the basis of the ideal culture for quality improvement in private higher education institutions.
Metabolic Changes In The Freshwater Fish Catla catla, Under Copper Cyanide Intoxication

ABSTRACT Laboratory evaluations were made to assess the metabolic changes in the carp, Catla catla exposed to sublethal concentrations of copper cyanide. Fish were exposed to two sublethal (0.253 and 0.152 mg/L) concentrations for a period of 15 days. At the end of the exposure period, levels of total protein, free amino acids (FAA), protease, glutamine, urea, ammonia, glycogen, lactate and pyruvate were assessed in different functional tissues (liver, muscle and gill). Results exhibited significant (p<0.05) dose dependent decline in total protein, glycogen, ammonia and pyruvate, while the FAA, protease, urea, and lactate levels exhibited significant increase in its activity in both the concentrations. There was a significant recovery observed in all the above biochemical parameters, in all the tissues of fish after the 7th d of the withdrawal of treatment. Significant alterations observed in the above parameters may be considered to be manifestation of stress induced by the toxicant and analysis of biochemical parameters in the fish tissue may serve as useful indices in environmental biomonitoring and surveillance.
Own resources for the EU budget. An analytical exploration of possible tax revenue instruments

The paper is an analytical endeavour exploring the relative merits of possible tax revenue instruments, if they were used as own resources for the EU budget. It first considers the criteria that could be considered when assessing a proposal to reform the regime of EU own resource. It then evaluates the degree of cyclical and structural convergence in the main tax aggregates across the EU Member States in order to draw general lessons for the revenue side of the central budget. These would be relevant not only for potential revenue sharing mechanisms based on existing tax instruments already implemented at the national level, but would help inform also the design of potential new taxes levied at the EU level.
Reverie qua worldliness in the wilderness texts: the autobiographical fiction of Es'kia Mphahlele and N. Chabani Manganyi

Written from the culmination point of exile in the universities of Denver and Yale, the two fictional autobiographies of Es'kia Mphahlele and Noel Chabani Manganyi mobilize reverie to hold in counterpoise the harsh reality of hostile home and exile. The article argues, through a reading of these texts via ideas of double consciousness and temporality, that we need to interpret reverie at the level of the interpenetration of the subject and object as both counterpoint to and counterpart of the ‘I’ and ‘me’ of fictional autobiography. These fictional autobiographies are framed in the double temporality of the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of exile, the most powerful trope of which is the near-escapism of reverie itself in the course of fantasies of violence. The fictional autobiography of exile – what is here called the wilderness text – becomes a line of flight imbued with a worldliness (a being-in-the world) that puts the body at stake as it contemplates and solidifies existing reality by doubling its representational time by means of reverie.
Effect of Occupational Exposure to Aluminum on Parathyroid Hormone and Calcium Metabolism

Aims: Aluminum is widely used in industry and it has been associated with several health hazards among exposed workers. To study the effect of aluminum on the parathyroid gland and the disturbance in calcium and phosphorus metabolism among workers exposed toaluminum in aluminum industry. Methodology: This study was conducted on fifty workers in an aluminum foundry, who were occupationally exposed to aluminum and were compared with fifty non -exposed individuals.Full history was taken, clinical examination and s ome laboratory investigations were done in the form of: CBC, kidney functions, serum PTH, serum calcium, serum phosphorus and serum aluminum . Plain X
RBF and CBF neural network learning procedures

We summarize our results from investigating different learning and classification algorithms for basis function limited neural networks. To achieve fast convergence we used RCE type learning procedures that have been modified for our applications and to enable simple hardware implementability. The used radial and cubic basis functions are a signum type function, a ramp function and a gaussian function. We investigated the learning algorithms to find fast and efficient procedures to automatically extract fuzzy rules and membership functions from high dimensional data which is topic of another paper. <<ETX>>
Signal Processing, Image Processing and Pattern Recognition

A detailed exposition of the main areas of signal processing, this book is divided into three sections: one-dimensional signal processing and digital filters; two-dimensional signal processing and image processing; and pattern recognition. Among the more specific topics covered are: analog filters; discrete systems and signals; non-recursive filters; FFT; IIR design; quantization effects; and hardware and software design. There is also material on system stability, picture enhancement and restoration, and parallel processing methods, as well as a comprehensive treatment of syntactic methods, parsing and neural networks.
Diagnostic accuracy of liver stiffness measurement and serum hyaluronic acid for detecting liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis B with respect to ALT levels

Abstract Background: The assessment of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis B is crucial in clinical practice. Objective: We compared the diagnostic accuracy of liver stiffness measurement (LSM) using transient elastography and serum hyaluronic acid (HA) in detecting liver fibrosis (METAVIR) in chronic hepatitis B, with respect to ALT levels. Method: One hundred fifty-six Thai patients with chronic hepatitis B who had undergone a liver biopsy were enrolled, and included 112 (71.8%) men and 44 (28.2%) women. The mean age of the patients was 40.1±12.2 years. The predictive accuracy was analyzed by comparing the areas under the receiver-operating characteristic curves (AUROCs). Result: LSM was superior to HA in predicting fibrosis stages of ≥F2 (AUROCs were 0.820 vs 0.727, p=0.009), ≥ F3 (0.910 vs 0.848, p=0.015) and F4 (0.938 vs 0.876, p=0.031). There was significant correlation between ALT level and LSM value, while such correlation between ALT and HA was not detected. Regarding the subgroup of patients with ALT levels >80 IU/L (2 × ULN), AUROCs of LSM and HA for predicting fibrosis stages of ≥F2 (0.733 vs 0.696), ≥F3 (0.892 vs 0.844) and F4 (0.934 vs 0.893) were not significantly different. Conclusion: LSM was superior to HA in predicting liver fibrosis and cirrhosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B. However, in patients with ALT elevation, the diagnostic performance of LSM was reduced and its accuracy was comparable to that of HA. Thus, HA could be an alternative method in assessing liver fibrosis in patients with high ALT levels.
An Empirical Model of Health Care Demand Under Non-Linear Pricing

In 2004, the German Social Health Insurance introduced a co-payment for the first doctor visit in a calendar quarter. I combine a structural model of health care demand and a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the effect of that reform on the number of visits. In the model, the implied incentive to delay a first visit also affects subsequent visits, as the expected remaining time to the end of quarter is reduced. This effect has been ignored by the prior literature using standard hurdle count models. Data are from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Results show no statistically significant reduction in visits due to the reform.
Overview of manifold learning techniques for the investigation of disruptions on JET

Identifying a low-dimensional embedding of a high-dimensional data set allows exploration of the data structure. In this paper we tested some existing manifold learning techniques for discovering such embedding within the multidimensional operational space of a nuclear fusion tokamak. Among the manifold learning methods, the following approaches have been investigated: linear methods, such as principal component analysis and grand tour, and nonlinear methods, such as self-organizing map and its probabilistic variant, generative topographic mapping. In particular, the last two methods allow us to obtain a low-dimensional (typically two-dimensional) map of the high-dimensional operational space of the tokamak. These maps provide a way of visualizing the structure of the high-dimensional plasma parameter space and allow discrimination between regions characterized by a high risk of disruption and those with a low risk of disruption. The data for this study comes from plasma discharges selected from 2005 and up to 2009 at JET. The self-organizing map and generative topographic mapping provide the most benefits in the visualization of very large and high-dimensional datasets. Some measures have been used to evaluate their performance. Special emphasis has been put on the position of outliers and extreme points, map composition, quantization errors and topological errors.
Tax-budget Deficit Relationships: Fiscalists¡¯ Platform for Deficit Financing Policy

With heavy debt burden on developing economies accompanied by their low credit worthiness rating, developing economies often resort to taxes for financing development projects. Raising tax rates and expanding tax bases have become frequent government activities in developing economies. Without dynamic deficit financing policy which takes into cognizance the conflicting arithmetic and economic effect of Laffer curve analysis, financing budget deficit through taxation has remained largely unsuccessful. Perhaps, what was required is to constitute latent factors operating along Laffer curve into major theoretical construct of a deficit financing policy. Therefore, study focused on identifying latent factors influencing the inter-relationship among budget deficit finance, taxes, human capital and macroeconomic indicators. Study spanned across 1970-2015. Data were sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics and World Development Indicators. Data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis. Results indicate that: (1) Tax contributed significantly to budget deficit financing (2)Tax spending and disposable personal income were latent factors influencing the effectiveness of deficit financing (3) Tax spending activated government revenue to contribute significantly to budget deficit reduction (4) Disposable personal income boosted GDP to cause reduction in budget deficit . It was concluded that, with the taxonomy of highly significant factor correlates of tax spending and disposable personal income, a viable deficit financing policy was devised with component tax, budgetary, pricing, credit and macroeconomic policies. It was recommended, inter alia, that developing economies should activate their current deficit financing policies by adapting them to their tax spend and macroeconomic policies.
Molecular diversity and phylogeny of human colonic bacteria

The comparison of microscopic and culture counts clearly indicates the existence of an important, yet uncultured fraction within the human gut microbial community. We herein illustrate the application of modern molecular microbial ecology techniques based on sequence comparisons of 16S ribosomal DNA for the specific and sensitive evaluation of the species diversity and the composition of the human digestive microbiota. In our studies, comparative sequencing of 110 cloned rDNAs obtained using PCR technology from a human fecal DNA extract indicated the presence of 3 major phylogenetic lineages within the human fecal microbiota: the Bacteroides group and the sub-groups Clostridium leptum and Clostridium coccoides. Of the 42 « molecular species » identified based on a sequence similarity cutoff of 97%, only a quarter were related to previously characterized microbial species confirming the occurrence of a large fraction of yet uncultured microorganisms. Quantitative dot-blot hybridization with total RNA extracts of fecal samples from 10 human volunteers, using a panel of rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes of increasing specificity, indicated that within the Bacterial domain, which was predominant, the Bacteroides group and the subgroups C. leptum and C. coccoides represented 35.5 + 4.5%; 30.4 + 6.5% and 19.7 + 2.2% of total Bacterial 16S rRNA, respectively. Adding probes specific for the Enterics and Lactobacillus groups and the genus Bifidobacterium, 92.4% of all Bacterial rRNA was accounted for. Results from previous studies described in the literature w ill be reviewed and compared to our findings. Description of the ecosystem The entire length of the adult human colon is about 150cm and consists of the ascending colon, transverse colon and descending colon. The human colon can be considered as a large continuous culture fermentor with an approximate volume of 500ml and an average of 220g of digestive contents [4] containing a complex microbiota interacting with living host cells. An average of 10
Modeling consumer confidence and its role for expectation formation: A horse race

The notion of bounded rationality has received a considerable attention in the midst of debate over the usefulness of various macroeconomic models. In this paper we empirically seek to analyze the baseline New-Keynesian model with heterogeneous agents who may adopt various heuristics used to forecast future movements in consumption. Agents could exhibit an optimistic or pessimistic view or act as fundamentalists or chartists when forming expectations on future consumption based on discrete choice. Our empirical results via the Simulated Method of Moment Approach show that consumer confidence in the US is heavily grounded on consumers' emotional state (with respect to optimism and pessimism), while for the Euro Area it is most likely technical in nature (with respect to fundamentalists and chartists). These heuristics lead to an equivalent or even better fit to the data compared to the hybrid version of the baseline New-Keynesian model. We argue that this study could open up new possibilities for estimating bounded rationality models and policy analysis.