Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficiency of Airports

Performance evaluation reveals itself as extremely useful tool, since there is no opportunity to an operator improve its efficiency if major indicators weren ́t controlled and measured. DEA is one of the methods used to do performance analysis, which allows to assess the relative efficiency of a group of operators. For this reason, DEA was the chosen method to evaluate a set of 145 airports spread along Europe, Asia/Pacific and North America with the major objective to realize the airport models that operated in a more efficient way, not only with an input orientation, but also with an output orientation, in 2010. The DEA model adopted as inputs the number of gateways, the number of employees, the total length of runways and other operational costs. As outputs, the number of flights and the workload unit were the chosen ones. Amongst 145 airports, only 21 airport were considered efficient with an input oriented model and 18 with an output oriented model. Furthermore, airports from Asia/Pacific operated more efficient than European or North American counterparts. Regarding its business model, private airports revealed less inefficiencies than public or public-private airports, as well as airports managed by individual entities were found to operate in a more efficient way than airports managed through holding companies. It was also possible to conclude that airports located in regions under economic regulation were more efficient than airport without airport regulation in output oriented model, whereas in input oriented models there were no difference.
Effects of Climate Change on Precipitation and the Maximum Daily Temperature (Tmax) at Two US Military Bases with Different Present-Day Climates

In this study, the effects of climate change on precipitation and the maximum daily temperature (Tmax) at two USA locations that have different climates—the Travis Airforce Base (AFB) in California [38.27° N, 121.93° W] and Fort Bragg (FBR) in North Carolina [35.14 N, 79.00 W]—are analyzed. The effects of climate change on central tendency, tail distributions, and both auto- and cross-covariance structures in precipitation and Tmax fields for three time periods in the 21st century centered on the years 2020, 2050, and 2100 were analyzed. It was found that, on average, Tmax under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 emission scenario is projected to increase for the years 2020, 2050, and 2100 by 1.1, 2.0, and 2.2 °C, respectively, for AFB, and 0.9, 1.2, and 1.6 °C, respectively, for FBR, while under the RCP8.5 emission scenario Tmax will increase by 1.1, 1.9, and 2.7 °C, respectively, for AFB, and 0.1, 1.5, and 2.2 °C, respectively, for FBR. The climate change signal in precipitation is weak. The results show that, under different emission scenarios, events considered to be within 1% of the most extreme events in the past will become ~13–30 times more frequent for Tmax, ~and 0.05–3 times more frequent for precipitation in both locations. Several analytical methods were deployed in a sequence, creating an easily scalable framework for similar analyses in the future.
IN SEARCH OF I50CHR0NY: COMPENSATING FOR DURATIONAL WARPING IN SPEECH PRODUCTION: by

The rhythmic organization of speech into regular intervals (i.e. isochrony), is a strong perceptual phenomenon. However, Investigators have been unable to demonstrate the existence of isochrony in production data. It is hypothesized in this study that the intended rhythm of a speaker is in fact isochronous, but that this is obscured by several distorting influences which introduce durational irregularity at the syllable level, e.g. intrinsic duration, stress, position of the syllable in a phrase and number of syllables in a phrase. It is proposed that removing the predictable durational irregularities will yield a more regular signal, reflecting the (hypothesized) Intended Isochronous rhythm of the speaker. The latter two sources of distortion introduce progressive durational irregularity or "warping" which can be readily incorporated into an automated "dewarplng" procedure. A computer program was devised to compensate, at the syllable level for these two sources of distortion. The former two sources are not amenable to such an automated procedure, and were therefore not included. The "dewarping" program was run on the speech amplitude envelopes of two speakers, one French and one English. The results Indicate that, for the French speaker, dewarping does remove some of the durational Irregularity, yielding a more regular amplitude envelope. For the English speaker, no such Improvement in regularity is obtained. This indicates that the dewarping used, which presumes the syllable as "unit" of dewarping, is appropriate for syllable-timed languages such as French, but inappropriate for stress-timed languages such as English. It therefore provides some support for isochrony in French at the syllable level. Finally, the results also give support to the hypothesis that the degree of warping perceived as regular in speech perception studies corresponds to the degree of dewarping which,
Fast 3D Perception for Collision Avoidance and SLAM in Domestic Environments

Autonomous service robots that assist in housekeeping, serve as butlers, guide visitors through exhibitions in museums and trade fairs, or provide care to elderly and disabled people could substantially ease everyday life for many people and present an enormous economic potential (Haegele et al., 2001; Pollack et al., 2002; Siegwart et al., 2003). Moreover, regarding the aging society in most industrialized countries the application of service robots in (elderly) health care might not only be helpful but necessary in the future. However, these service robots face the challenging task of operating in real-world indoor and domestic environments. Domestic environments tend to be cluttered, dynamic and populated by humans and domestic animals. In order to adequately react to sudden dynamic changes and avoid collisions, these robots need to be able to constantly acquire and process, in real-time, information about their environment. Furthermore, in order to act in a goal-directed manner, plan actions and navigate effectively, autonomous mobile robots need an internal representation ormap of their environment. Nature and complexity of these representations highly depend on the robot’s task and workspace. When operating in preliminary unknown environments, e.g., when it is unfeasible (or simply uncomfortable) to manually model the environment beforehand, the robot needs to construct an internal environment model on its own. Moreover, in dynamic environments the robot further needs to be able to continuously acquire and integrate new sensory information to update the internal environment model in regions where changes have taken place. As integrating new information into the model (mapping) requires knowledge about the robot’s pose (position and orientation in the environment) and determining the robot’s pose requires a map of the environment, these two problems need to be considered jointly and the problem 4
Disorder-Induced Metal-Insulator Transition: The Anderson Transition

We start by understanding the phenomenon of Anderson localization through qualitative arguments and a simple one-dimensional model. We then focus on the transition between a metallic phase and a localized, insulating phase. The basic properties of the transition are explored, in analogy with the thermal ferromagnetic transition. Then, we sketch a scaling theory which allows us to derive a scaling relation between the critical exponents, to predict in which dimensions the transition occur and to roughly estimate the critical exponents. The lower critical dimension is identified with weak localization corrections.
Title Crowding in the Scone pathway Permalink

The spatial extent of interference from nearby object or contours (the critical spacing of ‘‘crowding”) has been thoroughly characterized across the visual field, typically using high contrast achromatic stimuli. However, attempts to link this measure with known properties of physiological pathways have been inconclusive. The S-cone pathway, with its ease of psychophysical isolation and known anatomical characteristics, offers a unique tool to gain additional insights into crowding. In this study, we measured the spatial extent of crowding in the S-cone pathway at several retinal locations using a chromatic adaptation paradigm. S-cone crowding was evident and extensive, but its spatial extent changed less markedly as a function of retinal eccentricity than the extent found using traditional achromatic stimuli. However, the spatial extent agreed with that of low contrast achromatic stimuli matched for isolated resolvability. This suggests that common cortical mechanisms mediate the crowding effect in the S-cone and achromatic pathway, but contrast is an important factor. The low contrast of S-cone stimuli makes S-cone vision more acuity-limited than crowding-limited. 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Neuroinflammation and Neurogenesis in Alzheimer’s Disease and Potential Therapeutic Approaches

In adult brain, new neurons are generated throughout adulthood in the subventricular zone and the dentate gyrus; this process is commonly known as adult neurogenesis. The regulation or modulation of adult neurogenesis includes various intrinsic pathways (signal transduction pathway and epigenetic or genetic modulation pathways) or extrinsic pathways (metabolic growth factor modulation, vascular, and immune system pathways). Altered neurogenesis has been identified in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), in both human AD brains and AD rodent models. The exact mechanism of the dysregulation of adult neurogenesis in AD has not been completely elucidated. However, neuroinflammation has been demonstrated to alter adult neurogenesis. The presence of various inflammatory components, such as immune cells, cytokines, or chemokines, plays a role in regulating the survival, proliferation, and maturation of neural stem cells. Neuroinflammation has also been considered as a hallmark neuropathological feature of AD. In this review, we summarize current, state-of-the art perspectives on adult neurogenesis, neuroinflammation, and the relationship between these two phenomena in AD. Furthermore, we discuss the potential therapeutic approaches, focusing on the anti-inflammatory and proneurogenic interventions that have been reported in this field.
High-temperature, spectrally-selective, scalable, and flexible thin-film Si absorber and emitter

Solar thermal technologies have great potential to provide low-cost storage for solar energy. However, their efficiencies are limited by a lack of scalable, mechanically flexible, durable, yet highly-efficient spectrally-selective solar absorbers suitable for high temperatures at low solar concentrations. Here, we overcome these challenges by fabricating a scalable free-standing spectrally-selective thin-film Si absorber and emitter (SSTFS) composite. Its high-temperature emittance shows strong spectral selectivity, even at 595 °C. Thermal stability is proven by measuring optical properties before and after thermal cycling equivalent to one day of concentrated sunlight. Despite the use of crystalline Si, the fabricated SSTFS composite exhibits exceptional mechanical flexibility to cover most surface geometries. The SSTFS composite demonstrates the potential of high-temperature, efficient and flexible solar absorbers and thermal emitters to advance renewable solar energy with storage. © 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement
Bankruptcy Practice in Countries of Visegrad Four

Abstract Numerous economists and analysts from all over the world have been trying to find an appropriate method to assess company health and to predict its eventual financial distress for many years. No economy is a small isolated subject, and the bankruptcy of a company can cause through its stakeholders′ significant impact on the sustainable economic development. Otherwise, companies are very complicated entities, and it is not a simple task to estimate company’s future development. Together with the best-known Z-Score model of bankruptcy prediction developed by Altman, numerous models worldwide that are based on different methodologies have been developed. We assume that individual state’s economy has major influence on the final form of these models as well as there are several common characteristics between Slovak economy and economy of countries of Visegrad Four. Therefore, we applied chosen bankruptcy prediction models developed in countries of Visegrad Four on the set of Slovak companies and validated their prediction ability in specific condition of the Slovak economy. On the basis of the provided calculations, we compared gained results with the prediction capability of other popular prediction models also applied on the data set of Slovak companies. Through this, we pointed out the importance of the development of unique bankruptcy prediction model, which will be constructed in the specific condition of individual countries, and highlighted the weak forecasting ability of foreign models.
Analyzing the Causality and Dependence between Gold Shocks and Asian Emerging Stock Markets: A Smooth Transition Copula Approach

This study aims to investigate the causality and dependence structure of gold shocks and Asian emerging stock markets. The positive and negative shocks of gold prices are quantified, and Granger causality-based Vector autoregressive and Copula approaches are employed to measure the causality and contagion effect, respectively, between the positive and negative gold shocks and Asian emerging stock markets’ volatilities. In addition, the nonlinear link between gold and stock markets is of concern and this motivates us to propose a Smooth Transition Dynamic Copula that allows for the structural change in time-varying dependence between gold shocks and Asian stock markets’ volatilities. Several Copula families are also considered, and the best-fit Copula model is used to explain the correlation or contagion effects. The findings of the study show that there is some significant causality between gold shocks and Asian stock markets’ volatilities in some parts of the sample period. We also observe a stronger correlation during the global financial crisis when compared to the pre- and post-crisis periods. In addition, the tail dependence is found between Indian stock and negative gold shock and between Korean stock and negative gold shock, which indicated the existence of the risk contagion effects between gold and these two stock markets.
What should Top Management do for Increasing Business Performance?

There have been many studies conducted on business performance. Nevertheless, research on this issue in corporate users of space technology has never been done. This study tries to fill the literature gap, particularly on the use of variables such as strategic control, strategic orientation, business environment, and competitive strategy. This study employs the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) equation. The unit of analysis and observation unit of present study are a company that uses consumer technology products, and company management, respectively. Strategic control, strategic orientation and business environment are the variables that have a positive and significant impact on competitive strategy and business performance. However, competitive strategy does not indicate the indirect effect of strategic control, strategy orientation and the business environment on business performance. This at once denied the results of previous research that makes competitive strategy as a mediating variable to support business performance. The findings of this research are referred to as business performance models of enterprise users of aerospace technology. Figure 1: Model of hypothesis 1. Citation: Pratistha B (2018) What should Top Management do for Increasing Business Performance? Arabian J Bus Manag Review 8: 362.
A NOVEL SELF CONSTRUCTING OPTIMIZED – CASCADE CLASSIFIER WITH AN IMPROVISED NAÏVE BAYES FOR ANALYZING EXAMINATION RESULTS

Artificial intelligence is an emerging space of recent analysis that aims at infusing machine intelligence through computational techniques. Data mining (DM) permits economic information extraction from massive raw data sets, so as to get hidden or non-obvious patterns in data. Our motivation for mistreatment data mining was supported the hypothesis that the applying of the suitable data mining techniques on result records might produce an acceptable mechanism for the knowledge extraction representing the correlation between students and results. The extracted data was then used for the availability of customized recommendations to varsities together with the cascade framework developed. Naïve Bayes classifier and Random Tree classifier comparatively produces better accuracy and hence we propose an improvised Naïve Bayes classifier which is more efficient in accuracy. The cascade system developed interacts with completely different modules of the general integrated system developed to support college performance prediction system. This work aims at exploring the impact of machine learning techniques in categorizing performance on datasets comprising over 10,000 school records between 2010 and 2013. The findings disclosed that cascade improvised Naïve Bayes – C4.5 and cascade Random Tree – PART algorithm were able to achieve around 90 percent accuracy in classification of the performance of schools and that we believe implementation of the planned system can raise an explicit and correct prognostic system. To the simplest of our data, this is often the primary conceive to explore this massive assortment of supervised machine learning techniques within the style of intelligent prognostic systems within domain of result analysis.
STEM Education in Rural Schools: Implications of Untapped Potential

A large number of students in American public schools attend rural schools. In this paper, the authors explore rural science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and the issues associated with STEM education for students, teachers, and parents in rural communities. Characteristics of rural STEM education are examined to highlight unique considerations for this context. The authors conclude with the recommendation that more research is needed that specifically addresses rural STEM education.
Regional Disparities in the European Union:

Economic disparities between the regions of the European Union are of constant concern both for policy and economic research. In this paper we examine whether there are overlapping trends of regional development in the EU: overall convergence on the one hand and persistent or even increasing spatial concentration (agglomeration) on the other. Kernel density estimation, Markov chain analysis and cross-sectional regressions provide evidence that convergence of regional per-capita income in the EU15 has become considerably stronger in the 1990s. The reduction of income disparities, however, is a phenomenon between nations but not between regions within the EU countries. European integration (and possibly European regional policy) foster the catching-up of lagging countries but at the same time forces for agglomeration of economic activities tend to increase disparities within the EU member states. Obviously, the productive advantages of spatial proximity do not vanish in the knowledge economy. JEL classification: C14, R11, R12
An Electroporation Device with Microbead-Enhanced Electric Field for Bacterial Inactivation

This paper presents an electroporation device with high bacterial inactivation performance (~4.75 log removal). Inside the device, insulating silica microbeads are densely packed between two mesh electrodes that enable enhancement of the local electric field strength, allowing improved electroporation of bacterial cells. The inactivation performance of the device is evaluated using two model bacteria, including one Gram-positive bacterium (Enterococcus faecalis) and one Gram-negative bacterium (Escherichia coli) under various applied voltages. More than 4.5 log removal of bacteria is obtained for the applied electric field strength of 2 kV/cm at a flowrate of 4 mL/min. The effect of microbeads on the inactivation performance is assessed by comparing the performance of the microbead device with that of the device having no microbeads under same operating conditions. The comparison results show that only 0.57 log removal is achieved for the device having no microbeads—eightfold lower than for the device with microbeads.
Performance of working memory of musicians and non-musicians in tests with letters, digits, and geometrical shapes

Background. Recent researches points out that musical training might have a positive influence on human cognitive domain and working memory improvements are thought to mediate this influence. However, there is some discrepancy among results of researches dealing with working memory testing of musicians and non-musicians. Materials and Methods. The participants were the students who for 10–15 years had been engaged in regular musical practice (musicians) and their peers who had no previous musical experience (non-musicians). A computerized working memory test for letters, digits and shapes with successive presentation of stimuli was applied in the current study. Results. Musicians and non-musicians did not differ in the overall number of mistakes and latency of responses made in all subtests for letters, digits and shapes. The left hand made significantly more mistakes than the right one in both groups, but this regularity was more typical of non-musicians. The right hand responded faster than the left one while doing all subtests in both groups, but such a motor asymmetry was more evident for nonmusicians. Musicians mostly did not demonstrate an increase in latency of responses with task complexity growing from set to set of stimuli, while non-musicians did. Conclusions. The efficiency of working memory test performance did not differ among musicians and non-musicians. Musicians have tighter interhemispheric cooperation during the memory test and that was indicated by a lesser motor asymmetry. Musicians have almost equal latency of responses regardless of task complexity, while non-musicians require more time for responding to stimuli during growing task complexity, probably because of using different search patterns in working memory or tighter interhemispheric cooperation.