Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Which is the best model for the US inflation rate: a structural changes model or a long memory process

This paper analyzes the dynamics of the US inflation series using two classes of models : structural changes models and Long memory processes. For the first class, we use the Markov Switching (MS-AR) model of Hamilton (1989) and the Structural Change (SCH-AR) model using the sequential method proposed by Bai and Perron (1998, 2003). For the second class, we use the ARFIMA process developed by Granger and Joyeux (1980). Moreover, we investigate whether the observed long memory behavior is a true behavior or a spurious behavior created by the presence of breaks in time series. Our empirical results provide evidence for changes in mean, breaks dates coincide exactly with some economic and financial events such Vietnam War and the two oil price shocks. Moreover, we show that the observed long memory behavior is spurious and is due to the presence of breaks in data set.
Dynamic, Charge Photogeneration and Excitons Distribution Function in Organic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells

In this work, the excitons distribution function in organic bulk hetero junction solar cells, at a depth z has been determined from solving the charge continuity equation, by exploiting the Laplace transform with appropriate boundary conditions. Next, the influence of the electron-hole pair separation distance on the excitons dissociation probability, the internal quantum efficiency and the binding energy, has been studied. The simulated results show that the probability density of the carriers photo generated depends on the generation rate, excitons dissociation and the charge carriers in the cells. The potential improvement of the internal quantum efficiency of charge generation depends on electron-hole pair separation distance, the excitons dissociation probability into free charges and depends strongly on the optical absorption of the photons in the active layer.
High-throughput analysis of softwood lignin using tetra-n-butylphosphonium hydroxide (TBPH)

The authors developed a high-throughput method for analyzing softwood lignin using tetra-n-butylphosphonium hydroxide (TBPH). Wood meal, TBPH, and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) were introduced into a screw-capped glass test tube and allowed to react in a pressure cooker at 121 °C for 3 h to solubilize the wood meal. The solubilized polysaccharide was precipitated by the addition of a poor solvent such as methanol. After removal of the polysaccharide, the lignin concentration was measured via ultra-violet (UV) absorption spectroscopy. The series of operations performed was summarized as the TBPH method. The TBPH method was characterized as a simple and rapid procedure that used common equipment and was suitable for multiple-sample analysis. Softwood sample groups were prepared, and the lignin contents of these samples were measured by the TBPH method, the Klason method, and the acetyl bromide method to determine the accuracy of the proposed method. The TBPH method showed a high coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.94) when compared to the Klason method. By contrast, the acetyl bromide method showed a comparatively low correlation (R2 = 0.71) with the Klason method. This study revealed that the TBPH method presented high-throughput rapid analysis and good accuracy for soft wood lignin analysis.
Development of four stress levels in group stroop colour word test using HRV analysis

Background: Stress has become an integrated part of our life. Stress was modelled as four stages by Hans Selye’s in his General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) model. Objective: The main objective of this work is to design an efficient laboratory Group Stroop Colour Word Test (GSCWT) to induce distinct four levels of stress that is, no stress, low, medium and high stress, which mimics a real time working memory (WM) load for the subject and thus cause stress for the subject. Subjects and Method: Healthy and normal 50 subject’s Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is considered for analysis. GSCWT is developed using software Matlab 2013 and is validated by recording ECG both at rest and while performing the different levels of stroop task. The time domain, frequency domain parameters of HRV is determined using kubios software and the influence of GSCWT between the different levels of stress is analysed using statistical t-test to compare the features between each state and one-way Anova test is used to compare the features between all states. SPSS software is used for statistical analysis. Results: The results show that, all the HRV parameters are sensitive to WM demands, thus sensitive to stress and are sensitive indicators of different levels of mental stress. The developed GSCWT satisfies the Hans Selye’s GAS model of stress. Conclusion: The developed GSCWT test significantly differs between the four levels of stress compared to the previously developed Stroop colour test, the feature which makes this test as an efficient tool for conducting laboratory test, which can be used to develop a mental stress level measuring system that can efficiently distinguish between the different stress levels. The test can be conducted even with illiterate subjects as the only requirement of the subject to take up the test is to discriminate colours.
Monitoring nonlinear profiles using a wavelet-based distribution-free CUSUM chart

WDFTC is a wavelet-based distribution-free CUSUM chart for detecting shifts in the mean of a profile with noisy components. Exploiting a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) of the mean in-control profile, WDFTC selects a reduced-dimension vector of the associated DWT components from which the mean in-control profile can be approximated with minimal weighted relative reconstruction error. Based on randomly sampled Phase I (in-control) profiles, the covariance matrix of the corresponding reduced-dimension DWT vectors is estimated using a matrix-regularisation method; then the DWT vectors are aggregated (batched) so that the non-overlapping batch means of the reduced-dimension DWT vectors have manageable covariances. To monitor shifts in the mean profile during Phase II operation, WDFTC computes a Hotelling's T 2-type statistic from successive non-overlapping batch means and applies a CUSUM procedure to those statistics, where the associated control limits are evaluated analytically from the Phase I data. Experimentation with several normal and non-normal test processes revealed that WDFTC was competitive with existing profile-monitoring schemes.
The effect of folksonomy in information retrieval: a case study in Arabic documents

In Web 2.0 applications, tagging is an important tool to reflect users’ views and understandings of certain web content Tagging is often carried out collectively in a participatory manner, and tags can be structured to construct what is called ‘folksonomy’, which can capture the collective interests and efforts. Web 2.0 applications in general and folksonomies in particular are introduced as an important aid in web based educational systems. This paper explores the role of folksonomies in information retrieval, with a test collection of Arabic documents. Users were asked to tag online web documents in Arabic. Using precision and recall measures results shows that search and retrieval with the help of tags have both advantages and disadvantages compared to keyword-based information retrieval. It also reflects how the diversity of peoples’ views can result in a rich classification for the content. Moreover, it raises the question about how would Folksonomies aid in crosslingual information retrieval involving Arabic and
Mining Medline for the Visualisation of a Global Perspective on Biomedical Knowledge

There is an ever increasing number of data sources that potentially could be used to gain new insights into areas such as disease prevention, policy formulation/ evaluation and personalised medicine, but these are not optimised for use within an analytics type user interface. The MIDAS project was funded under a call for ‘Big Data supporting Public Health policies’ to develop a big data platform that facilitates the utilisation of healthcare data beyond existing isolated systems, making that data amenable to enrichment with open and social data [1]. This aligns closely with a number of themes in Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) in that the platform enables the integration of heterogeneous data sources, providing privacy-preserving analytics, forecasting tools and visualisation modules to deliver actionable information. Policy makers as a result will have the capability to perform data-driven evaluations of the efficiency and effectiveness of proposed policies in terms of expenditure, delivery, wellbeing, and health and socio-economic inequalities, thus improving current policy formulation, delivery risk stratification and evaluation. This H2020 project has a total of 15 partners from 5 EU countries as well as Arizona State University (ASU). The partners are Universities, SMEs and health departments in governmental institutions.
UNSATURATED FLOW IN LAYERED COVER SYSTEMS : A COMPARISON BETWEEN NUMERICAL AND FIELD RESULTS

Recently, it has been proposed to use covers with capillary barrier effects (CCBE) to limit gas migration and the infiltration of water into waste disposal facilities. Laboratory studies performed by the authors have shown that silty materials, such as clean tailings (tailings without sulfide minerals), can be used as the moisture-retaining layer in a CCBE. An in situ research program was initiated to further demonstrate the efficiency of CCBE constructed with tailings. This in situ investigation consisted of three experimental cells covered by a CCBE with a moisture-retaining layer made of clean tailings. Each CCBE was instrumented to monitor volumetric water content and matric suction. The results showed that such silty materials are efficient to retain moisture, even after a prolonged drainage period of 40 days. A comparison between predicted modeling results and measured results shows the validity of the proposed approach to predict actual conditions.
Why Open Data May Threaten Your Privacy

In this position paper we discuss the effect of open data on privacy. In order to reduce privacy issues due to the publication of open data, we suggest to build a database which overviews open data in a structured way with a special focus on privacy. This database could be enhanced with tools which automatically try to link existing datasets and allow publishers to check potential de-anonymization risks.
Health Risks Associated with Heavy Metals in Fine Particulate Matter: A Case Study in Delhi City, India

The concentrations of twenty five heavy metals adsorbed to fine fraction of particulate matter, PM2.5 (d ≤ 2.5 μm) have been experimentally analysed at a sampling site located at the kerbside along a National Highway in Delhi city, India. The sampling has been carried out for 12-hour using Ecotech Intruments, APM550. The PM2.5 has been collected on PTFE filter papers for the winter season. Later, the filter papers have been analysed for various heavy metal concentrations using ED-XRF. It has been observed that the metals concentrations are in this trend: Si > K > S > Ca = Fe > Zn = Pb > Br. it is observed that Si has high co-relation with Ca, Fe and K, which may be due to crustal origin of all three elements; while S, Br and Pb may be from vehicular exhaust emissions and/or abrasions due to brake and tyre wear. The potential health risks associated with different carcinogenic heavy metals have also been calculated. One of the health risk indicators, the excess cancer risk (ECR), is found to be in the order as As > Cd > Pb > Cr > Ni.
Towards embedded detection of polyps in WCE images for early diagnosis of colorectal cancer

Purpose: Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) is commonly used for noninvasive gastrointestinal tract evaluation, including the detection of mucosal polyps. A new embeddable method for polyp detection in wireless capsule endoscopic images was developed and tested. Methods: First, possible polyps within the image were extracted using geometric shape features. Next, the candidate regions of interest were evaluated with a boosting-based method using textural features. Each step was carefully chosen to accommodate hardware implementation constraints. The method’s performance was evaluated on WCE datasets including 300 images with polyps and 1200 images without polyps. Hardware implementation of the proposed approach was evaluated to quantitatively demonstrate the feasibility of such integration into the WCE itself. Results: The boosting-based polyp classification demonstrated a sensitivity of 91.0%, a specificity of 95.2% and a false detection rate of 4.8%. This performance is close to that reported recently in systems developed for an on-line analysis of video colonoscopy images. Conclusion: A new method for polyp detection in videoendoscopic WCE examinations was developed using boosting-based approach. This method achieved good classification performance and can be implemented in situ with embedded hardware.
The reproductive biology of the porbeagle shark (Lamna nasus) in the western North Atlantic Ocean

Reproductive organs from 393 male and 382 female porbeagles (Lamna nasus), caught in the western North Atlantic Ocean, were examined to determine size at maturity and reproductive cycle. Males ranged in size from 86 to 246 cm fork length (FL) and females ranged from 94 to 288 cm FL. Maturity in males was best described by an inflection in the relationship of clasper length to fork length when combined with clasper calcification. Males matured between 162 and 185 cm FL and 50% were mature at 174 cm FL. In females, all reproductive organ measurements related to body length showed a strong inflection around the size of maturity. Females matured between 210 and 230 cm FL and 50% were mature at 218 cm FL. After a protracted fall mating period (September–November), females give birth to an average of 4.0 young in spring (April−June). As in other lamnids, young are nourished through oophagy. Evidence from this study indicated a one-year reproductive cycle and gestation period lasting 8–9 months.
Iso-caryophyllene cytotoxicity induced by lipid peroxidation and membrane permeabilization in L-929 cells

Jean Legault, Philippe-Aubert Côté, SteevenOuellet, Stéphan Simardand André Pichette Laboratoire d’analyse et de séparation des essences végétales (LASEVE), Département des sciences fondamentales, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Chicoutimi (QC) G7H 2B1, Canada. Département de biologie, chimie et géographie, Université du Québec à Rimouski, 300, Allée des Ursulines, Rimouski (QC) G5L 3A1, Canada.
Capturing and Visualizing Eye Movements in 3D Environments

Visual attention can be a viable source of information to assess human behaviors in many different contexts, from human-computer interaction, over sports or social interactions, to complex working environments, such as to be found in the context of Industry 4.0. In such scenarios in which the user is able to walk around freely, mobile eye-tracking systems are used to record eye movements, which are then mapped onto an ego-perspective video. The analysis of such recordings then requires large efforts for manually annotating the recorded videos on a frame-by-frame basis to label the fixations based on their locations to the target objects present in the video. First, we present a method to record eye movements in 3D scenarios and annotate fixations with corresponding labels for the objects of interest in real-time 2. For this purpose, we rely on computer-vision methods for the detection of the camera position and orientation in the world. Based on a coarse 3D model of the environment, representing the 3D areas of interest, fixations are mapped to areas of interest. As a result, we can identify the position of the fixation in terms of local object coordinates for each relevant object of interest. Second, we present a method for real-time creation and visualization of heatmaps for 3D objects 1. Based on a live-streaming of the recorded and analyzed eye movements, our solution renders heatmaps on top of the object s urfaces. The resulting visualizations are more realistic than standard 2D heatmaps, in that we consider occlusions, depth of focus and dynamic moving objects. Third, we present a new method which allows us to aggregate fixations on a per object basis, e.g. similar to regions/areas of interest. This allows us to transfer existing methods of analysis to 3D environments. We present examples from a virtual supermarket, a study on social interactions between two humans, examples from real-time gaze mapping on body parts of a moving humans and from studying 3D prototypes in a virtual reality environment.
Heart rate and body temperature response of wheelchair basketball players in small-sided games

The purpose of this study was to analyze the physiological response of wheelchair basketball (WB) players during the different bouts of a training task (4 vs. 4). Twelve WB players participated in this study (25.3 ± 2.4 years). Five sessions of the small-sided games (SSG) were performed, with 4 sets each session and a rest interval of 2 min between each one. Significant differences were found (p<0.05) in heart rate peak (HRpeak) in the last three bouts in comparison to the first (169.5 ± 12.47, 170.78 ± 12.80, 170.03 ± 11.78 vs. 167.19 ± 11.74 beat•min-1). Mean HR (HRmean) showed a similar trend, but there were also significant differences (p<0.05) between the second and third bouts (156.37 ± 12.04 vs. 158.21 ± 11.82 beat•min-1). Body temperature remained constant during the first three bouts and showed a significant increase (p<0.05) in the fourth bout. During the SSG, HRmean was similar to that obtained in other studies of official matches, so they could represent an adequate training task for improving WB performance. However, special attention should be paid to the number of bouts performed in the training sessions as the physiological response was not constant.
Dynamic analysis of the insurance linked securities index

This paper aims to provide a dynamic analysis of the insurance linked securities index. We are discussing the behaviour of the index for three years and pointing out the consequences of some major events like Katrina or the last and current financial crisis. Some stylized facts of the index, like the non-Gaussianity, the asymmetry or the clusters of volatility, are highlighted. We are using some GARCH-type models and the generalized hyperbolic distributions in order to capture these elements. The GARCH in Mean model with a Normal Inverse Gaussian distribution seems to be very efficient to fit the log-returns of the insurance linked securities index.
Environmental Regulation and International Competitiveness

II. ENVIRONMENTAL PROCESS REGULATION, LIABILITY RULES, AND COMPETITIVENESS: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS . 2051 A. Explaining Differences in Environmental Standards Among Nations . 2052 1. Differing Assimilative Capacities . 2052 2. Political Failure . 2054 3. Externalities . 2054 B. Effects of Differing National Environmental Requirements on Competitiveness . 2056 C. Desirability of International Competition in Assimilative Capacity . 2057
Hematological and biochemical modulation in regular yoga practitioners

Yoga is a physical and mental discipline that forms part of Ayurvedic medicine, a comprehensive and ancient holistic health system. Given the limited information available on the hematological and biochemical changes associated with the extended practice of yoga, the purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of long-term yoga practice (more than three years) on blood parameters. Twenty-six healthy volunteers of whom sixteen were advanced practitioners of yoga took part in the study. The remaining ten participants were not practitioners and constituted the control group. Blood samples were taken to determine the following hematological parameters: erythrocytes, hematocrit, hemoglobin, platelets and erythrocyte sedimentation rate; and biochemical parameters: renal and hepatic profile, glucose, uric acid, total protein and albumin. The Mann-Whitney U test was performed to ascertain the statistical analysis. The experimental group showed higher hemoglobin levels (p>0.01) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (p>0.01) and lower albumin levels (p>0.05). The regular practice of yoga brings about changes in basic hematological parameters. New clinical trials with a wider sample of subjects will be needed in order to recommend the use of yoga as a complementary therapy in those cases where the above-mentioned parameters are altered.
Joint Adaptive Coding and Reversible Data Hiding for AMBTC Compressed Images

: This paper proposes a joint coding and reversible data hiding method for absolute moment block truncation coding (AMBTC) compressed images. Existing methods use a predictor to predict the quantization levels of AMBTC codes. Equal-length indicators, secret bits and prediction errors are concatenated to construct the output code stream. However, the quantization levels might not highly correlate with their neighbors for predictive coding, and the use of equal-length indicators might impede the coding efﬁciency. The proposed method uses reversible integer transform to represent the quantization levels by their means and differences, which is advantageous for predictive coding. Moreover, the prediction errors are better classiﬁed into symmetrical encoding cases using the adaptive classiﬁcation technique. The length of indicators and the bits representing the prediction errors are properly assigned according to the classiﬁed results. Experiments show that the proposed method offers the lowest bitrate for a variety of images when compared with the existing state-of-the-art works.
KINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF LOWER LIP-JAW AND TONGUE-JAW INTERACTIONS DURING SYLLABLE REPETITIONS : SOME ASPECTS OF MOTOR EQUIVALENCE

A rate-controlled syllable repetition task (/pa/, /pi/, /ta/, /ti/; 3 and 5 syllables per second) was used to study the effects of jaw lower lip and jaw tongue tip coordination on differential movement amplitudes. In some cases, significant negative covariation across repetitions emerged, but the opposite constellation was observed as well. Considering the systematic effects of vowel context and syllable rate, the jaw showed some independency from the lower lip and the tongue. However, the differential functional role of jaw contribution to the compound gestures varied across speakers and conditions. These findings are at variance with the suggestion of a speaker-independent gestural organization of speech units at the stage of phonological processing.