Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Competition between Employed and Unemployed Job Applicants: Swedish Evidence

We use the Swedish Applicant Database to investigate empirically whether being unemployed per se reduces the probability of getting contacted by a firm. All searchers looking for a new job are invited to submit their personal details to this database over the internet. Since we have access to exactly the same information as the firms, we can minimize the problems associated with unobserved heterogeneity. Our results show that an unemployed applicant faces a lower contact probability than an otherwise identical employed applicant, thus supporting the notion that firms view employment status as a signal of productivity.
Examensarbete Implementations of the FFT algorithm on GPU

The fast Fourier transform (FFT) plays an important role in digital signal processing (DSP) applications, and its implementation involves a large number of computations. Many DSP designers have been working on implementations of the FFT algorithms on different devices, such as central processing unit (CPU), Field programmable gate array (FPGA), and graphical processing unit (GPU), in order to accelerate the performance. We selected the GPU device for the implementations of the FFT algorithm because the hardware of GPU is designed with highly parallel structure. It consists of many hundreds of small parallel processing units. The programming of such a parallel device, can be done by a parallel programming language CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture). In this thesis, we propose different implementations of the FFT algorithm on the NVIDIA GPU using CUDA programming language. We study and analyze the different approaches, and use different techniques to accelerate the computations of the FFT. We also discuss the results and compare different approaches and techniques. Finally, we compare our best cases of results with the CUFFT library, which is a specific library to compute the FFT on NVIDIA GPUs.
X-ray, optical, and infrared investigation of the candidate supergiant fast X-ray transient IGR J18462 ? 0223

We report on a broad-band X-ray study (0.5-60 keV) of the poorly known candidate Supergiant Fast X-ray Transient (SFXT) IGR J18462-0223, and on optical and near-infrared (NIR) followup observations of field objects. The out-of-outburst X-ray state has been investigated for the first time with archival INTEGRAL/IBIS, ASCA, Chandra and Swift/XRT observations. This allowed us to place stringent 3 sigma upper limits on the soft (0.5-10 keV) and hard (18-60 keV) X-ray emission of 2.9x10^-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1 and 8x10^-12 erg cm^-2 s^-1, respectively; the source was also detected during an intermediate soft X-ray state with flux equal to 1.6x10^-11 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (0.5-10 keV). In addition, we report on the INTEGRAL/IBIS discovery of three fast hard X-ray flares (18-60 keV) having a duration in the range 1-12 hours: the flaring behavior was also investigated in soft X-rays (3-10 keV) with archival INTEGRAL/JEM-X observations. The duty cycle (1.2%) and the dynamic ranges (> 1,380 and > 190 in the energy bands 0.5-10 keV and 18-60 keV, respectively) were measured for the first time. Archival UKIDSS JHK NIR data, together with our deep R-band imaging of the field, unveiled a single, very red object inside the intersection of the Swift/XRT and XMM-Newton error circles: this source has optical/NIR photometric properties compatible with a very heavily absorbed blue supergiant located at about 11 kpc, thus being a strong candidate counterpart for IGR J18462-0223. NIR spectroscopy is advised to confirm the association. Finally, a hint of a possible orbital period was found at about 2.13 days. If confirmed by further studies, this would make IGR J18462-0223 the SFXT with the shortest orbital period among the currently known systems.
Speech Communication across the lifespan

The task that an infant faces when acquiring speech and language can be likened to deciphering a fiendishly complex code. What makes speech so complex is the fact that there is a lack of constancy between the acoustic signal and the abstract referent that it represents. Indeed, the acoustic patterns that cue phonetic distinctions vary from talker to talker. This between-talker variability is partly linked to the physical make-up of the talker, which to a great extent determine the acoustic characteristics of the speech that is produced. Talkers may also vary from each other in terms of their regional accent (Jacewicz and Fox, 2016), or the social and gender markers in their speech. Further variability in this complex code arises because a given talker will not produce acoustic patterns in an identical fashion even when uttering the same word on different occasions: much of this withintalker variability occur as a function of how fast we speak and in what speaking style, the physical and mental health of the talker, and other such factors.
Survivability of boar sperm stored under room temperature in extenders containing some natural products

Background: Semen extenders are used to create multiple insemination doses from a single ejaculate and contain buffers and nutrients suitable for storage of spermatozoa. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the survivability of boar sperm stored under room temperature in different extenders containing some natural products. Methods: A volume of 10 mL of pooled semen collected from four mature crossbred (Landrace × Large White) boars was stored in 12 different extenders containing 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0% per liter each of honey, sugarcane juice, tomato juice, and pineapple juice. The semen samples were observed under a microscope every hour to determine sperm motility by scoring. Survivability of the sperm cells was taken as the average percentage number of motile spermatozoa in each extender recorded during 24 hour storage duration. The experimental layout was a 4 × 3 factorial in a randomized complete block design. Results: Average sperm survivability was higher for semen stored in honey and sugarcane juice extenders compared ( P , 0.05) to sperm stored in tomato and pineapple extenders. The proportion of spermatozoa that survived within the 24 hour storage time was highest in the honey group and lowest in the pineapple group. The average percentage of sperm that were motile was higher when 1.5% and 2.0% of test ingredients was included in extender compared ( P , 0.01) to 1.0% inclusion rate. Conclusion: The present study clearly demonstrates that spermatozoa can be stored in extenders containing honey, sugarcane juice, tomato juice, and pineapple juice. Moreover, the survivability of sperm in these extenders can be enhanced when the percentage constituent of these natural materials in the extenders is increased from 1.0% to 2.0% inclusion rates.
NONPARAMETRIC MINIMAL SURFACES IN R WHOSE BOUNDARIES HAVE A JUMP DISCONTINUITY

Let be a domain in R 2 which is locally convex at each point of its boundary except possibly one, say (0,0), be continuous on /{(0,0)} with a jump discontinuity at (0,0) and f be the unique variational solution of the minimal surface equation with boundary values . Then the radial limits of f at (0,0) from all directions in exist. If the radial limits all lie between the lower and upper limits of at (0,0), then the radial limits of f are weakly monotonic; if not, they are weakly increasing and then decreasing (or the reverse). Additionally, their behavior near the extreme directions is examined and a conjecture of the author's is proven.
BREAST GLANDULARITY IN MALAYSIAN WOMEN FROM A FULL-FIELD DIGITAL MAMAMOGRAPHY SYSTEM

This study is undertaken to estimate breast glandularity in Malaysian women from a Full-Field Digital mammography System. This study involved 223 women (Malay—100; Chinese— 101 and Indian—22) underwent voluntary screening mammography at Breast Centre, International Islamic University Malaysia (HUM Breast Centre) for the first (punier of year 2009. Those are women aged between 31 to 69 years old (median age. f.9 years). Data on miliampre-seconds, kilovoltage, and compressed breast thickness for each craniocaudal view are used to estimate breast glandularity for an individual breast. Breast glandularity is calculated using the fitted equation reported, earlier. The difference in breast glandularity among ethnic groups was tested for significance using the nonparametric KruskalWallis test. The average breast glandularity estimated in our study, using FFDM system is 52.9j± 27.03%. No significant difference was seen in breast glandularity among the ethnic groups (p>0.05, Kruskal-Wallis test). Breast glandularity decreases as age increases, up to 60 years old. ABSTRAK Kajian ini dijalankan untuk menilai glandulariti payudara wanita di Malaysia menggunakan satu System Digital Mamografi Berbidang Penuh. Kajian ini melibatkan 223 wanita (Melayu—100; China—101 dan India—22) yang telah menjalani ujian saringnpenyaringan mamografi sukarela di Pusat Payudara, Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (Pusat Payudara HUM) untuk suku pertama tahun 2009. Mereka adalah wanita yang berumur diantara 31 hingga 69 tahun (umur median, f'J tahun). Data miliampere-saat, kilovoltan dan ketebalan payudara tertekan untuk setiap prosedur craniocaudal telah diguna untuk menilai glandulariti setiap payudara. Perbezaan bermakna glandulariti payudara diantara kumpulan etnik diuji menggunakan ujian bukan-parametrik KruskalWallis. Kajian menunjukkan purata glandulariti payudara menggunakan system digital mamografi berbidang penuh ialah 52.9f±27.03%. Tiacla perbezaan yang bermakna untuk glandulariti payudara diantara kumpulan etnik (p>0.05, ujian Kruskal-Wallis). Glandulariti payudara berkurangan dengan meningkatnya umur sehingga 60 tahun.
Impact of penetrative solar radiation on the diagnosis of water mass transformation in the Mediterranean Sea

[1] We applied a revised diagnosis of water mass formation and mixing to a 1/8° resolution ocean model of the Mediterranean Sea. The diagnosis method used and presented by Iudicone et al. (2008) is similar to that developed by Walin (1982) and applied to the Mediterranean Sea by Tziperman and Speer (1994), to which we added a penetrative solar radiation. Both the prognostic model and the diagnostic method were in agreement with respect to the solar flux parameterization. Major changes were observed in the yearly budget of water mass transformation when the penetrative solar radiation is taken into account in the diagnosis. Annual estimates of water mass formation rates were decreased by a factor of two, with values within the range [-3.7 Sv, 1.5 Sv] compared to [-6 Sv, 3 Sv]. This decrease resulted from a lower seasonal variation when penetrative solar radiation was included. This can be explained by the fact that the solar radiation flux acted over a wider range of seawater density leading to lower net values over a given density interval. The major impact of the penetrative solar radiation occurred during spring and summer. Newly formed dense water was then transformed into lighter water with a rate reaching a value about 50% of that of the water mass formation rate in winter. Another consequence was that mixing processes which counteract formation rate in yearly budget of water mass formation rates, were overestimated. We showed that, in spring and summer, about a third of the transformation took place below the surface layer.
Variation in soil properties on two partially revegetated saline scalds in south-eastern Australia

During 1999 and 2000, topsoil properties were sampled on a 3 by 3 m grid at 2 saline scalds on the inland slopes of New South Wales (NSW): Bocobra (0.11 ha) and Rugby (0.12 ha). Variability was examined in terms of range, standard deviation and coefficient of variation, maps with interpolated ‘contours’, and variograms. High variability was evident in all soil properties. pH1:5 water ranged from 4.8 to 8.0 at Bocobra and 5.9 to 9.0 at Rugby. Spatial ‘highs’ were evident at both sites but Rugby, which was mostly neutral, had both highs (alkalinity) and lows (acidity). Electrical conductivity (EC1:5 water) ranged from 0.5 to 6.6 dS/m at Bocobra and 0.1 to 2.6 dS/m at Rugby and was expressed spatially as highs across the sites. Concentrations of soluble ions were highly variable with both highs and lows evident. Concentrations of sodium and magnesium at Bocobra were highly correlated with EC1:5 water. Variability in EC and pH were high in comparison with published data from much larger areas of non-saline soils. An indication of temporal variability was obtained by carrying out an electromagnetic induction survey on 2 occasions. Despite changes in spatial patterns over time, EMh and EMv values were highly correlated at 1 site but not at the other. Variogram analysis suggested that changes in some variables, e.g. soluble potassium, changed markedly over distances less than 3 m. For most variables, the full range of variability occurred over distances of 8–10 m, though for some, e.g. soluble calcium, a distance of around 19 m was indicated. Variability cannot be ignored when planning revegetation projects or experiments. Partly because of their temporal variability, electromagnetic induction survey results (which were not calibrated with soil profile ECs in this study) may not provide useful guidelines for strategic soil sampling nor for locating experimental plots on scalded saline sites. Consideration should also be given to testing variables other than EC, e.g. pH and calcium, which may also limit plant growth on saline scalds.
A Case Study on Increasing Microgrid Resiliency Using Reserve Power Procurement Method

Power system decentralization has been an emerging topic for the past decade in an effort to improve power quality and environment protection via increased integration of renewable energy sources. Towards these objectives, decentralized microgrids have been proposed and thoroughly investigated in terms of technical capabilities and economic performance. In fact, the planning and actual operation of small-scale, decentralized microgrids has started in countries such as Canada, Japan, USA, UK and other countries. It is expected that the research in this area will progress and eventually take over the existing paradigm of large-scale power generation in the future. These small-size decentralized microgrids could be connected with nearby microgrids under normal operating conditions, but under special events, such as natural or man-made disasters, they would be disconnected and run in islanded mode. Under such high impact – low probability events, the microgrid must have resiliency to successfully re-connect with other microgrids and the main grid. In this paper, an Energy Management System (EMS) for a microgrid having a resiliency function, allowing to operate under islanded mode after an accident, is proposed. The proposed tool, called Resilient Energy Management System (ResEMS), aims at procuring reserve power into the microgrid’s Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) effectively, by importing it from the nearby connected power system. The accident is assumed to be a predictable natural disaster, which means that the accident occurrence time, duration and level of damage can be estimated. The proposed ResEMS has been applied to a microgrid comprising of a BESS, a diesel generator and several photovoltaic devices. The simulation results verify its beneficial operation.
MAGIC GAMMA-RAY TELESCOPE OBSERVATION OF THE PERSEUS CLUSTER OF GALAXIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR COSMIC RAYS, DARK MATTER, AND NGC 1275

The Perseus galaxy cluster was observed by the MAGIC Cherenkov telescope for a total effective time of 24.4 hr during 2008 November and December. The resulting upper limits on the γ-ray emission above 100 GeV are in the range of 4.6–7.5 × 10−12 cm−2 s−1 for spectral indices from −1.5 to −2.5, thereby constraining the emission produced by cosmic rays, dark matter annihilations, and the central radio galaxy NGC 1275. Results are compatible with cosmological cluster simulations for the cosmic-ray-induced γ-ray emission, constraining the average cosmic ray-to-thermal pressure to <4% for the cluster core region (<8% for the entire cluster). Using simplified assumptions adopted in earlier work (a power-law spectrum with an index of −2.1, constant cosmic ray-to-thermal pressure for the peripheral cluster regions while accounting for the adiabatic contraction during the cooling flow formation), we would limit the ratio of cosmic ray-to-thermal energy to ECR/Eth < 3%. Improving the sensitivity of this observation by a factor of about 7 will enable us to scrutinize the hadronic model for the Perseus radio mini-halo: a non-detection of γ-ray emission at this level implies cosmic ray fluxes that are too small to produce enough electrons through hadronic interactions with the ambient gas protons to explain the observed synchrotron emission. The upper limit also translates into a level of γ-ray emission from possible annihilations of the cluster dark matter (the dominant mass component) that is consistent with boost factors of ∼104 for the typically expected dark matter annihilation-induced emission. Finally, the upper limits obtained for the γ-ray emission of the central radio galaxy NGC 1275 are consistent with the recent detection by the Fermi-LAT satellite. Due to the extremely large Doppler factors required for the jet, a one-zone synchrotron self-Compton model is implausible in this case. We reproduce the observed spectral energy density by using the structured jet (spine-layer) model which has previously been adopted to explain the high-energy emission of radio galaxies.
Worst-case versus average-case design for estimation from partial pairwise comparisons

Pairwise comparison data arises in many domains, including tournament rankings, web search, and preference elicitation. Given noisy comparisons of a fixed subset of pairs of items, we study the problem of estimating the underlying comparison probabilities under the assumption of strong stochastic transitivity (SST). We also consider the noisy sorting subclass of the SST model. We show that when the assignment of items to the topology is arbitrary, these permutationbased models, unlike their parametric counterparts, do not admit consistent estimation for most comparison topologies used in practice. We then demonstrate that consistent estimation is possible when the assignment of items to the topology is randomized, thus establishing a dichotomy between worst-case and average-case designs. We propose two computationally efficient estimators in the average-case setting and analyze their risk, showing that it depends on the comparison topology only through the degree sequence of the topology. We also provide explicit classes of graphs for which the rates achieved by these estimators are optimal. Our results are corroborated by simulations on multiple comparison topologies.
Sonar tracking of multiple targets using joint probabilistic data association

The problem of associating data with targets in a cluttered multi-target environment is discussed and applied to passive sonar tracking. The probabilistic data association (PDA) method, which is based on computing the posterior probability of each candidate measurement found in a validation gate, assumes that only one real target is present and all other measurements are Poisson-distributed clutter. In this paper, a new theoretical result is presented: the joint probabilistic data association (JPDA) algorithm, in which joint posterior association probabilities are computed for multiple targets (or multiple discrete interfering sources) in Poisson clutter. The algorithm is applied to a passive sonar tracking problem with multiple sensors and targets, in which a target is not fully observable from a single sensor. Targets are modeled with four geographic states, two or more acoustic states, and realistic (i.e., low) probabilities of detection at each sample time. A simulation result is presented for two heavily interfering targets illustrating the dramatic tracking improvements obtained by estimating the targets' states using joint association probabilities.
Identifying the Fixed Base Location of Building Structures under Seismic Excitation

The identification of the location of the fixed base at the bottom of a typical structure with a constant stiffness over its height in an earthquake zone is of extreme importance in the design of building structures. Few seismic design codes and investigators have suggested procedures that determine the location of the fixed base (the zero displacement position); these suggested methods are rather simplified and don’t give the designers accurate values for the location of the base shear and maximum moment positions on the basement of a structure; this location is very important especially when using static lateral force methods for evaluating structural loads. This work provides a procedure that allows designers to locate the fixed base when subjected to seismic excitation considering the type of the soil surrounding basements. It also gives an upper and lower limit for the structure that should be chosen considering the soilstructure flexibility.
Pattern formation in adaptive multiplex network in application to analysis of the complex structure of neuronal network of the brain

In this paper we investigate the impact of competition between layers of adaptive multiplex network on pattern formation in the system under study and discuss the possibility of the further application of the obtained results for the analysis of the neural network of brain. To describe the dynamics of interacting nodes we use the Kuramoto model of coupled phase oscillators. To understand the macroscopic processes that take place in this system we calculate and compare the values of layer and global order parameter, which describe the degree of coherence between the nodes in each layer and over whole network, respectively. We find that in such adaptive network the low values of order inside layers corresponding to the formation of similar topologies among them. Nevertheless, the cluster synchronization results in divergence of layer structures from each other.
Comparative Study of Surgical Approaches for Distractive Flexion Injuries of Sub-Axial Cervical Spine

Distractive flexion injuries (DFI) of subaxial cervical spine are common after motor car accident or falling from height. The ideal surgical approaches to DFI are still unclear. A retrospective comparative study of surgical approaches for DFI of sub-axial cervical spine involved 60 patients throughout the years 2014 to 2016 at Al-Azhar University Hospitals. All patients were undergoing initial routine resuscitative measures, full general and neurological examinations. Neurologic function was assessed according to modified Frankel’s grading. All patients were received cervical plain antero-posterior, lateral and oblique X-ray, CT with 3D and MRI of cervical spine. Severity of DFI injury was assessed according to Allen and Ferguson’s classification. The most common level involved was C5-6 and most common grade was grade 3. The patients operated through anterior approach were 36 patients and through the posterior approach were 24 patients. Restoring cervical alignment was achieved in 29 patients (80.56%). The mean time of bone fusion was 5.454 months in anterior approach while it was 9.876 months in posterior approach. The extend of bone fusion was good in 30 patients (83.33%) after anterior approach and in 8 patients (33.33%) after posterior approach, while poor fusion was observed in 6 patients (16.67%) after anterior approach and 16 patients (66.67%) after posterior approach. We can conclude that anterior cervical approach is better in DFI stage 3 and 4 where there are associated ruptured intervertebral disc. Posterior approach is better in DFI stage 1 and 2 with or with presence of posterior compressing lesion.