Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nutrient fluxes in forests of the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, United States of America

Soil nutrient contents and fluxes in semiarid lodgepole (Pinus contorta [Dougl.]) and Jeffrey pine (P. jeffreyi [Grev. and Balf.]) stands of the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains are described and compared to those in the Integrated Forest Study sites [Johnson and Lindberg, 1992]. These Sierran forests, like others in the southwestern United States, have very low N, S, and H+ fluxes compared to more humid forests. Base cation fluxes in these Sierran forests are high relative to more humid forests, however, reflecting the high base status of the soils, inputs from nearby desert systems, and high rates of soil weathering. Soil C and N contents in these Sierran forests are low compared to those in more humid forests, probably because of lower primary productivity and more frequent fire. Soil extractable P pools in these Sierran forests vary by 2 orders of magnitude and are strongly influenced by parent material. As in most snow‐dominated systems, pulses of NO3− are released from the melting snowpack each spring in the Sierran forests. Nitrogen released from melting snowpack is retained in the soil in most cases, but there are substantial springtime pulses of NO3− in stream waters during dry years. Budget calculations indicated that N losses during fire (both wildfire and prescribed fire) and N gains associated with postfire N‐fixing vegetation are an order of magnitude greater than N inputs and outputs via solution phase.
ETF indexation methods: A risk-adjusted performance analysis

Increasing sophistication of exchange-traded fund (ETF) indexation methods required that a comparison be drawn between various methodologies to establish the benefits of such product innovations. A risk-adjusted performance evaluation of four pre-selected ETF indexation categories was conducted to establish how alternative ETFs compare to standard market capitalisation–weighted ETFs. The research methodology involved that fundamentally weighted, equally weighted and leveraged ETFs were compared to traditional market capitalisation–weighted ETFs on the basis of risk-adjusted performance measures. Using a sample of South African and American ETFs, several risk-adjusted performance measures were employed to assess the risk and return of each indexation category. Special emphasis was placed on the Omega ratio because of the unique interpretation of the return series distribution characteristics. Findings show that fundamentally weighted ETFs outperformed the other categories during an upward moving market when using standard risk-adjusted performance measures. Moreover, the Omega ratio analysis revealed inherent unsystematic risk in alternatively indexed ETFs, and ranked market capitalisation–weighted ETFs as the best performing category. Equal-weighted ETFs delivered consistently poor rankings, whilst leveraged ETFs exhibited a high level of risk associated with the amplified returns of this category. The study highlights that recent ETF developments bring unique risks that require cautious implementation of alternative ETFs into a portfolio.
Series Cryptography and Algorithmic Randomness

The secure instantiation of the random oracle is one of the major open problems in modern cryptography. We investigate this problem using concepts and methods of algorithmic randomness. In modern cryptography, the random oracle model is widely used as an imaginary framework in which the security of a cryptographic scheme is discussed. In the random oracle model, the cryptographic hash function used in a cryptographic scheme is formulated as a random variable uniformly distributed over all possibility of the function, called the random oracle. The main result of this paper is to show that, for any secure signature scheme in the random oracle model, there exists a specific computable function which can instantiate the random oracle while keeping the security originally proved in the random oracle model. In modern cryptography the generic group model is used also for a similar purpose to the random oracle model. We show that the same results hold for the generic group model. In the process of proving the results, we introduce the notion of e↵ective security, demonstrating the importance of this notion in modern cryptography.
A low cost touch-screen interface for image collage

En este articulo se presenta el diseno de una interfaz de bajo costo basada en interaccion touch-screen para crear collage de imagenes. La interfaz fue disenada para propositos de rehabilitacion, tales como la estimulacion de desarrollo cognitivo, habilidades motoras, creatividad y expresividad. La interaccion touch-screen de la interfaz se basa en la utilizacion de un control remoto de Wii. Para evaluar la eficiencia de la interfaz, el diseno touch-screen fue comparado con un diseno basado en interaccion con el mouse. A pesar de los problemas inherentes a la baja resolucion de la camara infrarroja del wii Remote, los resultados experimentales obtenidos muestran que la version del sistema touch-screen permitio un mejor desempeno para realizar tareas que requieren habilidades motoras finas, tales como delinear la forma libre de una figura
Overconfidence and turnover - Evidence from the Hong Kong stock market

High trading volume is a common phenomenon in global financial markets, and it seems to go against the paradigm of classic economic theory based on rational agents and efficient markets. In this thesis, we turn to behavioral finance, as we try to explain this anomaly as a consequence of the so-called overconfidence bias. According to previous research, market return influences the level of overconfidence and overconfidence is the key factor leading to excessive trading. This thesis aims at investigating empirically whether overconfidence exists in the Hong Kong stock market. We construct a market-wide VAR model to investigate the lead-lag relationship between return and turnover, the presence of which can be considered as evidence of overconfidence. Our results suggest that investors are indeed overconfident in the Hong Kong market. To distinguish overconfidence from the disposition effect, we develop an individual security model by using a panel data approach. The empirical findings from the individual security model suggest that the overconfidence found in the Hong Kong market is not just an aggregation of individual disposition effects. Although the disposition effect may also be used as an explanation of the interaction between return and turnover, we find that overconfidence dominates in the Hong Kong stock market.
Reason ing and Learning in Probabi l i s t i c and Poss ibi l i s t ic Networks : A n Overview *

Graphical modelling is a powerful framework for reasoning under uncertainty. We give an overview on the semantical background and relevant properties of probabilistic and possibflistic networks, respectively, and consider knowledge representation and independence as well as evidence propagation and learning such networks from data. Whereas Bayesian networks and Markov networks are well-known for a couple of years, we also outline the perspectives of possibflistic networks as a tool for the efficient information-compressed treatment of uncertain and imprecise knowledge.
Financial transaction taxation in agent-based simulation

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of financial transaction taxes (FTTs) on the stability of financial markets. This paper presents an agent-based financial market model and simulations in which agents follow technical and fundamental trading rules to determine their speculative investment positions. The model developed by Westerhoff (2009) was chosen for implementation and was extended by FTT and arising transaction costs. Because FTTs may be defined in various ways, this paper defines assets as tax objects. The model includes direct interactions between speculators, which may lead them to decide to change their trading behavior and addresses a technical and a fundamental strategy of market participants. The results suggest that the modified model has a tendency to stabilize itself in the long term if fundamental trading rules outweigh the technical trading method. This model could be used when bubbles and crashes occur in financial markets. Asset prices would be stabilized because their value targets near the fundamental value and volatility would also be minimized. Setting FTTs at a low rate for market stabilization is important. If FTTs and consequent transaction costs are too high, then the financial system will destabilize and prices will grow without limit. The model described in this paper explores dependence market stability to the extent of FTTs. However, the model should not be interpreted as a model only for the introduction of FTT, but as a general model of transaction costs’ influence on the financial market.
RESONANCES REQUIRED: DYNAMICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 24 Sex AND HD 200964 PLANETARY SYSTEMS

We perform several suites of highly detailed dynamical simulations to investigate the architectures of the 24 Sextantis and HD 200964 planetary systems. The best-fit orbital solution for the two planets in the 24 Sex system places them on orbits with periods that lie very close to 2:1 commensurability, while that for the HD 200964 system places the two planets therein in orbits whose periods lie close to a 4:3 commensurability. In both cases, the proposed best-fit orbits are mutually crossing—a scenario that is only dynamically feasible if the planets are protected from close encounters by the effects of mutual mean-motion resonance (MMR). Our simulations reveal that the best-fit orbits for both systems lie within narrow islands of dynamical stability, and are surrounded by much larger regions of extreme instability. As such, we show that the planets are only feasible if they are currently trapped in mutual MMR—the 2:1 resonance in the case of 24 Sex b and c, and the 4:3 resonance in the case of HD 200964 b and c. In both cases, the region of stability is strongest and most pronounced when the planetary orbits are mutually coplanar. As the inclination of planet c with respect to planet b is increased, the stability of both systems rapidly collapses.
Integrated Emission Management strategy for cost-optimal engine-aftertreatment operation

A new cost-based control strategy is presented that optimizes engine-aftertreatment performance under all operating conditions. This Integrated Emission Management strategy minimizes fuel consumption within the set emission limits by on-line adjustment of air management based on the actual state of the exhaust gas aftertreatment system. Following a model-based approach, Integrated Emission Management offers a framework for future control strategy development. This approach alleviates calibration complexity, since it allows to make optimal trade-offs in an operational cost sense. The potential of the presented cost-optimal control strategy is demonstrated for a modern heavy-duty Euro VI engine. The studied diesel engine is equipped with cooled EGR, Variable Geometry Turbocharger, and a DPF-SCR aftertreatment system. A simulation study shows that the proposed Integrated Emission Management strategy accomplishes 2% to 3% reduction in fuel consumption and operating costs compared to a baseline strategy. Further potential benefits include reduced heat rejection associated with the EGR system and reduced DPF regeneration frequency. © 2011 SAE International.
QP Partitioning for Radiationless Transitions

QP Partitioning for Radiationless Transitions Cyrille Lavigne Master of Science Graduate Department of Chemistry University of Toronto 2014 This work presents a new implementation of the QP algorithm, a computer method to diagonalize the extremely large matrices arising in multimode vibronic problems. Benchmark calculations are included, showing the accuracy of the program. The QP algorithm is extended to treat multiple electronic surfaces for competitive control and this is demonstrated with an Hamiltonian including three electronic states, a model of the benzene radical cation. Finally, the evolution of zeroth-order states in a simple two electronic states, two dimensional model with a conical intersection is explored, towards building a time-dependent view of overlapping resonances coherent control.
Relevance of the RDP/UDP system for feeding of ruminants in the tropics, with emphasis on straw based diets.

The system of protein evaluation based on RDP/UDP values as proposed by ARC and later adopted by NRC, considers the microbial needs for rumen degradable protein (RDP) and the host's need (at the tissue level) for absorbed amino acids derived from microbial protein and the undegraded dietary protein which escapes rumen fermentation. Microbial protein synthesised in the rumen is a function of energy made available as ATP from the fermentation of dietary carbohydrates. Insufficient extraction of energy by microbes from cell wall rich crop residues results in limited energy availability for rumen microbial growth. The N degradability of straw in the rumen is reported to be 50-60%, but the inherently low N values of straw makes the RDN availability also a limitation. From available literature, it was calculated that one kg of wheat straw on DM basis could supply 3.1 g of RDN, 2.5 g of UDN and 6.1 MJ of ME. The corresponding values for urea treated straw worked out as 8.75 g of RDN, 3.75 g of UDN and 7.6 MJ of ME I kg DM. Untreated straw fed as a sole diet cannot meet RDN and ME requirements for maintenance of a 200 kg heifer or a 400 kg lactating animal. Feeding of urea treated straw as a sole diet can provide extra nutrients (RDN, ME) for 100-150 g of live wt gain/day to a 200 kg calf, or can provide extra nutrients for yielding 2-3 kg of milk/day from a 400 kg cow. For such a cow, supplementation of untreated straw with 4 kg of concentrate could provide sufficient RDN and ME to yield 5-6 kg of milk/day, whereas just one kg of concentrate is needed along with urea treated straw to achieve the same level of performance. Supplementation with 3 kg concentrate along with urea treated straw can supply sufficient RDN and UDN but ME for producing 10 kg of milk/day. Feeding of proteins of low degradability may supply insufficient protein and energy for achieving higher yields.
Title Mass deformed ABJM theory on three sphere in large N limit

In this paper the free energy of the mass deformed ABJM theory on S3 in the large N limit is studied. We find a new solution of the large N saddle point equation which exists for an arbitrary value of the mass parameter, and compute the free energies for these solutions. We also show that the solution corresponding to an asymptotically AdS4 geometry is singular at a certain value of the mass parameter and does not exist over this critical value. It is not clear that what is the gravity dual of the mass deformed ABJM theory on S3 for the mass parameter larger than the critical value.
IDENTIFICATION OF MEMBERS IN THE CENTRAL AND OUTER REGIONS OF GALAXY CLUSTERS

The caustic technique measures the mass of galaxy clusters in both their virial and infall regions and, as a byproduct, yields the list of cluster galaxy members. Here we use 100 galaxy clusters with mass M200 ⩾ 1014 h−1 M☉ extracted from a cosmological N-body simulation of a ΛCDM universe to test the ability of the caustic technique to identify the cluster galaxy members. We identify the true three-dimensional members as the gravitationally bound galaxies. The caustic technique uses the caustic location in the redshift diagram to separate the cluster members from the interlopers. We apply the technique to mock catalogs containing 1000 galaxies in the field of view of 12 h−1 Mpc on a side at the cluster location. On average, this sample size roughly corresponds to 180 real galaxy members within 3r200, similar to recent redshift surveys of cluster regions. The caustic technique yields a completeness, the fraction of identified true members, fc = 0.95 ± 0.03, within 3r200. The contamination, the fraction of interlopers in the observed catalog of members, increases from at r200 to at 3r200. No other technique for the identification of the members of a galaxy cluster provides such large completeness and small contamination at these large radii. The caustic technique assumes spherical symmetry and the asphericity of the cluster is responsible for most of the spread of the completeness and the contamination. By applying the technique to an approximately spherical system obtained by stacking the individual clusters, the spreads decrease by at least a factor of two. We finally estimate the cluster mass within 3r200 after removing the interlopers: for individual clusters, the mass estimated with the virial theorem is unbiased and within 30% of the actual mass; this spread decreases to less than 10% for the spherically symmetric stacked cluster.
“Image of a Hausdorff arc” is cyclically extensible and reducible

It is shown that a Hausdorff continuum S is the continuous image of an arc (respectively arcwise connected) if and only if each cyclic element of S is the continuous image of an arc (respectively, arcwise connected). Also, there is given an analogue to the metric space cyclic chain approximation theorem of G. T. Whyburn which applies to locally connected Hausdorff continua.
Aluminium uptake by Anabaena cylindrica

Summary: Atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used to characterize aluminium uptake by the cyanobacterium Anabaena cylindrica. An EDTA-washing procedure was used to distinguish between adsorbed and intracellular aluminium. The intracellular aluminium content increased with increasing external concentration and time. The phosphorus concentration in the growth medium did not affect the rate of aluminium uptake nor did dark treatment or addition of CCCP, an uncoupler of phosphorylation. We therefore conclude that aluminium toxicity is due to intracellular aluminium rather than to interactions with nutrients in the growth medium and that aluminium uptake is independent of phosphorus uptake. The accumulation of aluminium in polyphosphate granules and cell walls of phosphorus-rich cells noted earlier is rather due to an increased binding capacity in these cellular compartments. Also, the rapid uptake of aluminium by A. cylindrica mainly occurs via passive diffusion.
Heart Disease Analysis System Using DataMining Techniques

Data mining is an iterative progress in which evolution is defined by detection, through usual or manual methods. Knowledge discovery and data mining have found various applications in scientific domain Heart disease is a term for defining a huge amount of healthcare conditions that are related to the heart. This medicinal condition defines the unpredicted health conditions that directly control all the parts of the heart. Different data mining techniques such as association rule mining, classification, clustering are used to predict the heart disease in health care industry . The heart disease database is preprocessed to make the mining process more efficient. The preprocessed data is clustered using clustering algorithms like K-means to cluster relevant data in database. Maximal Frequent Itemset Algorithm (MAFIA) is used for mining maximal frequent patterns in heart disease database. The frequent patterns can be classified using C4.5 algorithm as training algorithm using the concept of information entropy. The results showed that the designed prediction system is capable of predicting the heart attack with good accuracy.
Hodgkin lymphoma — closer to failure-free treatment

A major challenge in the clinical research on Hodgkin lymphoma is an optimization of the current treatment algorithms in a way that would reduce late toxicity without compromising efficacy. Population-based studies evaluating the late effects of treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma of a limited stage indicate a risk of relapse at 10% to 20%, mostly occurring within the first 3 years post-therapy, and on the other hand, a risk of second malignancy or cardiovascular disease increasing constantly and markedly exceeding the corresponding risk in healthy people. Although this elevated risk of late complications is attributed to the oncogenic potential of combined modality treatment including both cytotoxic agents and mediastinal irradiation, randomized trials successfully addressing radiation-free and/or alkylator-free regimens that could change the paradigm of combined chemoand radiotherapy have not been performed. In this review, we present in brief guideline-based treatment outcomes, new data from recent studies related to risk-adapted therapy guided by the early response assessment with interim PET/CT, studies on recurrent disease as well as novel agents. It is hoped that recent advances in the field of immunotherapy including toxin conjugated anti-CD30 antibody and checkpoint inhibitor anti-PD1 antibody will drive progress in the systemic treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma has already happened in some solid tumours.
Stress , fatigue and inattention amongst city bus drivers – an explorative study on real roads within the ADAS & ME project

Knowledge about normal glance behaviour and typical stress and fatigue levels amongst city bus drivers is very sparse. We therefore conducted an exploratory pre-study with 15 participants during an actual shift in real traffic with passengers. The aim was to gain knowledge about stress, fatigue and glance behaviour during normal operation of a bus, with the subsequent goal to gather data to facilitate upcoming work on driver state detection algorithms targeting the transfer of control between the driver and an autonomous bus. Data collected during the trials include eye tracking, physiology (electrocardiogram, electrooculogram), subjective ratings (sleepiness and stress) and video (driver and road ahead). Lessons learned includes that driving a bus in an urban environment requires frequent sampling of peripheral visual information (why one-camera eye trackers will not work, and why road centre-based distraction detection algorithms will fail) and that physiological data requires personalised algorithms. Regarding the bus drivers’ working situation, fatigue and stress levels were generally low, but increased levels of stress and sleepiness existed even in an exploratory experiment like this without any manipulation.
6 Risk regulation

In 2010, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) started its operation at the European Nuclear Research Centre (CERN) in Geneva (CERN, 2010). The LHC is a subatomic particle accelerator that promises major scientific discoveries by running the biggest set of physics experiments in history. These promises are, however, darkened by the grim predictions of some scientists that the LHC entails the remote risk of destroying the Earth. For instance, it has been argued that the LHC could create mini-black holes that would grow and annihilate the Earth by swallowing it (Johnson, 2009: 840–42). Such doomsday scenarios have been the subject of several lawsuits aimed at blocking the operation of the LHC.1 While most of the lawsuits were dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction (Johnson, 2009: 860), the legal challenges unveiled profound dilemmas facing contemporary lawyers and policymakers. How can lawyers and policymakers assess whether a risk is plausible? How should they decide what risks a society ought to bear? How to treat remote risks of catastrophic consequences? What weight is to be given to minority views in science? Even if policymakers, judges and lawyers seldom deal with cases involving risks such as those posed by the LHC, they are often confronted with similar questions. The policymaking questions underlying the management